Why Ikea doesn’t care if you can’t remember Kullen, Valevåg, Pax/Hasvik and Pax/Forsand.

I was having a drink with a very smart client last week. We were talking about B2B portfolio branding, and she was challenging my general observation that B2B businesses should only try to build sub-brands with funky (sorry, distinctive) names as the exception, not the rule.  “But, Fred, does it have to be so boring?  You end up with a bunch of unmemorable names.  I mean, if Ikea can call its sofas Ektorp or Klippan, why can’t we use cooler, more memorable names for our products in B2B”?

I’d like to say I had the answer at my fingertips.  I didn’t.  But after a bit of back-and forth we got there….and in getting there we identified some truths that were in our view useful.

Firstly, we realised that asking if Ikea’s product names are memorable is the wrong question, because this focuses on the intrinsic quality of a name (its memorability) and not its ultimate effect (being remembered). The real question is: are they remembered and recalled when the decision on where to shop for furniture is being made?  The answer? Unlikely.  Because we humans don’t like to remember everything we’re presented.  Weird sounding names where the meaning is not immediately clear demand mental effort to remember, we’re cognitive misers that tune out the majority of the stuff we encounter everyday and then forget much of what we do pay attention to.  But that’s where the big, bad, weird-sounding €14.7bn Ikea brand asset comes in (valuation thanks to Brand Finance).  I go to Ikea to buy sofas because Ikea has done a masterful job over many years associating the Ikea brand in my mind - and many others - with sofas.  What their sofa ranges are called is not relevant until I get into the store or online to identify which Ikea sofa I want.  

Aha, I (sort of) said, the mistake here is that we’d be deploying top-of-funnel tactics (the creation of distinctive brand assets) to a bottom-of-funnel moment of the customer journey. Ikea’s product names are not sub-brands, they are just product identifiers. They’re as arbitrary as an alphanumeric, just with more personality.  One or two may gain some cultural currency over time - Billy shelves, ironically one of the least Swedish-sounding of their products, seems to be much talked about - but most often you go to Ikea to buy furniture and then work out which Swedish-sounding range you like the look of.  In fact, these names don’t need to be memorable in the sense that they are stored in our memories and recalled at some future point when a relevant need arises.  In fact, they don’t even need to be pronounceable as they are so rarely spoken or heard. They just need to be distinct from each other at the point of purchase so we don’t accidentally order a Hemnes series of bedroom furniture when it’s the Malm series we liked the look of

(I did not say Hemnes or Malm at the bar, I had to look both those names up at home afterwards…but this reinforces my point because these names were not in my memory and able to be recalled by me).

But why do so many B2B businesses insist on creating crazy names in their portfolio, my client persisted, perhaps spotting it was my round and it was worth extending the conversation.  

She thought it was a question of discipline and creating the right context.  SAP, MIcrosoft, IBM, Salesforce - they all do a pretty good job at resisting the temptation to ‘brand’ every new innovation they take to market.  What they’ve realised is that the 95% of the market that are not ‘in market’ will not pay attention to this level of detail; and that to have a chance of being remembered in all their categories means they need to focus on brand name, top line category relevance, maybe one or two key technologies or platforms, and no more.  They’re actually very good at ‘branding’ LESS things (fewer things, I thought, fewer! but I suppressed my inner pedant).

I added that it was also a question of budget.  Most B2B product launches have a meagre promotional budget. And a well-meaning product manager, with a product that is the next big thing (it always is), thinks a cool name is in order, something so cool that you only need to hear it once to remember it forever. Meanwhile, back in the real world, the portfolio ends up littered with disconnected, unclear names from the last couple of years of product marketing coming up with memorable names, which force an actively shopping customer to say ‘wait, what the hell is that?” right at the point where you want him or her to say “there it is, that’s exactly what I need”.

She graciously agreed, but we both knew she’d made the better points.  The night was drawing to an end and I felt it was my job to sum up: there will always be room for a few well-thought-through sub brands, with the right resources (promotional budget, organisational focus, sales alignment, etc) and with a clear purpose in the portfolio, either to shine a light on a capability that is new or important and which the parent brand does not get credit for.  And that if the organisation behind it can turn the volume down on all the other things it wants to talk about, and put this sub-brand in the spotlight, there’s a chance it might actually work.  

And with that, we bade each other good night.

European best name and best brand relaunch

We’re biased here of course as Olix is a regular winner at the Transform Awards, but they have become the gold standard of industry recognition for what we do, so we’re always proud to brag when we do well.. This year we entered our work for Trinzic Group. Trinzic was a recent spin off from UK-based Thames Water and we’re really proud of this one. It’s a terrific name and a really bold visual identity. The judges agreed, awarding us two golds, one for ”best naming strategy” and  the other for ” best visual identity, energy and utilities sector”.

See the video below for an interview with me (Fred Burt) and Kim Daye (our lovely client)

Fewer, better brands...again

I realised i’d first used this phrase back in 2015 on a post here (and probably way before that back in my Interbrand days). But the world does not seem to have moved on, as I mentioned today in this Linkedin post

The gist of the post was that too many B2B businesses are trying to create and maintain too many brands, without understanding what it takes to do so. Have a read, tell me what you think.

BIG, BOLD, BRAVE

Not my words, I should stress. These were the words of one of the Transform Awards judges who decided our work for IFS last year was worthy of a best-in-class Gold award.

It coincided with IFS announcing a new investment from HG which valued the business at $10bn, a significant leap in value since we started working with them. Creative and commercial! Now there’s a thing…

CO-EXISTENTIALISM

With 13m+ trademark applications a year, and more than 60m registered trademarks, coexistence agreements between brand owners are likely to become more and more common. Thought-provoking article from our friends at StobbsIP….including an intriguing hint at the future problems that may line in wait for brand owners in the metaverse.

Read more here

W nd t tlk abt Abrdn

Yesterday Standard Life Aberdeen announced it was rebranding to Abrdn. The FT called me for comment, as they do from time to time. See below for the article.

It’s so easy to sling mud at anything new, so before I do - and I will - let me start by saying what makes sense.

Firstly, the business strategy.  The new CEO, Stephen Bird, has made it clear that he wants to focus the business. Rationalising the portfolio of brands makes perfect sense in the context.

Secondly, given the above, this represents a great opportunity for Bird to signal the business was not just consolidating but changing.  And as I said in my article, a bold brand change can be a helpful precursor to, and accelerant of, real change in a business.

Thirdly, anything new and different is always going to feel alien and uncomfortable at the outset.  In fact, if it feels too comfortable it’s probably because it’s generic.

And finally, in a crowded trademark registry, with over 40m registrations on the WIPO database alone, not to mention the complexities of top level domains, creating something new that you can register and own is extremely difficult.  

But…and here comes the mud….that name is a shocker.

Any brand that has to explain how it is pronounced is off to a bad start.  The dropping of vowels feels faddish, evoking the lazy spelling of texting teenagers or TikTok stars.  It tries too hard.

Was it really necessary?  Were the legacy names such a liability that they couldn’t choose one?  There’s a lot of brand equity - and business value - that’s been tossed out of the window here.  There’s a perfectly passable visual identity that is being overlooked in all of this that could have carried much of the weight of change without the collateral damage that the name is creating.

However it’s not just the name.  Beyond the brand architecture question - five brands becoming one - there was no explanation why they needed a new name.  “Our new brand Abrdn builds on our heritage and is modern, dynamic and, most importantly, engaging for all of our client and customer channels,”  said Bird. “It is a highly differentiated brand that will create unity across the business.”  It worries me when I hear senior executives talking about ‘the brand’ like this.  It’s a name and a logo at the moment, and the only engaging that is going on is of the wrong sort.  ‘The brand’ is something that they will build over time and then, only then, will they have something that contributes value.

And that’s the core of the problem here.  There’s no substance to compensate for the clumsy style.  No idea behind the images and the words.  No explanation about how this will result in concrete improvements for intermediaries or customers.  No promise to intrigue or excite.  There’s a forgettable video, with lots of circular objects, that talks in generic terms about togetherness and building a better world.  

The more I look for redeeming features, the more I worry that there really is no story, no clear business strategy for how these businesses come together to be more valuable for their stakeholders.  Financial services is dull, and is crying out for a big modern, technology-led player to lead the way.  But you have to bring people with you, show them what it means, what their role is, why they should be excited, what you’re planning to actually do.

The next time we can expect to see progress in August.  Meanwhile, it’s business as usual “alongside implementation of a full stakeholder engagement plan to manage the transition”.  I pity the group brand team that have to sell this pup to the existing businesses.  Because here is the real danger: that come August the business will try to move forward…but the legacy organisations won’t support it.  And that’s hard.  You need a culture that is pulling for the new vision of the business, not one that is ashamed by the name of the company they work for.  You need employees who are proud of the company they represent, not who quietly participate in the jokes about missing letter Es with intermediaries, colleagues, customers and analysts.  It needs to rally, to galvanise, to excite, not to embarrass.  If they don’t get it right behind the scenes between now and August, it will be a slow, invisible death by apathy.

What's your 'freedom'?

In the famous scene in Braveheart, Mel Gibson plays William Wallace, and addresses his army before the Battle of Sterling Bridge in 1297. 

Wallace rides with sword drawn asking his men whether they’ll fight, despite the English army outnumbering them many times over. One nervous Scottish soldier says no, it’s better to retreat and live to fight another day.

Wallace responds by saying this:

“Aye, fight and you may die. Run and you’ll live — at least a while. And, dying in your beds many years from now, would you be willing to trade all the days from this day to that for one chance, just one chance, to come back here and tell our enemies that they may take our lives, but they’ll NEVER TAKE OUR FREEDOM!?! 

What he didn’t do was try to explain rationally how they were going to win the battle. Instead he gave his men something to believe in: a noble cause, a purpose: freedom.

And I’d contend there are two things that he does to make this work, and which all great leaders do well.

Firstly, he explains the broader impact of what they are doing. It’s not just a battle it’s a moment in history that each soldier’s families will look back on.

Secondly, he does this with real feeling and emotion.  He makes it personal and as a result we believe in him. In fact, this belief almost overrides whether or not we believe rationally in the chances of victory.

Now, in your business you may not feel like you’re fighting a war. But every day you get up you can either feel like you’re fighting an overwhelming huge army of English and that you haven’t got a chance

Or….

You can fight for something that transcends winning or losing; that has purpose; that impacts more than just your immediate customers or the bottom line; and that you believe in, and have passion for.

I’d say this is a the difference between having a business proposition that wins (the rational) and a sense of purpose that creates momentum (the emotional). This is why being purposeful and emotive matters if you’re trying to change your business. Because without it, the case for change is rational and, for your employees, it can feel like fighting a battle you’re likely to lose.

The new IFS

We’ve been busy in 2021…

This summer my 14 year old started a business. Here’s what happened.

This summer, rather than allowing my 14 year old to spend his holiday on TikTok, Insta and co, I helped him – along with 2 friends -  set up a bike rental business in the holiday village in Suffolk where we spent July and August.  It was great for them all.  They learned plenty of business basics: assets, cashflow, P&L, back office/front office, staff motivation, legal liability, marketing, operations, fixed/variable costs, the difference between debt and equity, and more.  Ollie built lots of self-confidence through dealing with customers and acquiring skills in bike maintenance that he never thought he was capable of.  He had fun doing it, earned some proper money (they made c £2k profit) and discovered that there is a certain caché in being a young entrepreneur.  Ollie, if you’re reading this, I was super proud of you.

As I watched them, it was fascinating how many well-established business truths came to the fore.   Here were a few that I noticed:

Focus on your core business. 
The initial idea was to buy old bikes, do them up and then rent them.  But the ‘doing them up’ part proved harder than they imagined, and they realised quickly that they made money from renting not from ‘doing up’.  So they sold off a number of junk bikes and reinvested the cash into a small number of better bikes, so they could spend less time in the workshop and more time with the customers.  Nice pivot, team!

The customer experience really counts. 
In part because they were so keen to impress, they completely overdelivered on customer service. Customers loved it. 

Optimise continually.
Despite their best efforts – and even with some help from me – the proposition was strong, but was not as clear as we all thought.  They naturally spotted this, using both customer observation and Google keywords, and adjusted the website and social media language repeatedly through the summer.

Play to your strengths.
Initially they had a bit of imposter syndrome, afraid that they’d somehow be found out as fakes.  However hey quickly worked out that, as their customer base was largely families on holiday, the fact that they were 14 year olds was more asset than liability.  Any parents were by and large hugely supportive of the notion of schoolkids running a business, and they realised this gave them scope to upsell, cross-sell as well as license to make a few mistakes. 

People are strange.
One of the biggest learnings was that adults are not always as sensible, patient, intelligent and rational as they were used to….and that being frustrated by this was unhelpful.  By the end of the summer they had definitely matured in this regard.

Colleagues matter.
There’s no way Ollie would have been able to do this by himself.  When he lost momentum, his friends buoyed him up.  Where he was reticent, they were often more confident.  Together they were a team, and achieved so much more than they could have done separately.

Business can be fun.
Given my son is 14 year old boy who normally communicates with eye rolls and monosyllables, it was a joy was to witness his emotional highs.  They were properly nervous before the first customer, and then shrieked with delight when that first customer rode off having paid.  They relished the negotiation with the guy that tried to haggle with them for the junk bikes.  They fist-bumped each other when the business hit its first £1000. 

It’s about more than the money.
Curiously, the earning of money was never a motivator (although it was a good KPI and it made the business real).  They seemed comfortable with the fact that if they did a good job, the money would take care of itself.  The very fact they were doing it and succeeding was reward enough. 

It wasn’t all plain sailing.  A couple of bikes broke down in awkward spots, they didn’t handle one tricky customer particularly well, and they weren’t strong enough with some customers who refused to pay deposits.  I thought that heavy breathing had gone out of fashion along with space invaders, leg warmers and streaking, but clearly not (amusingly one of Ollie’s friends suggested that the caller might have Covid and should see a doctor immediately). Ollie’s exploitation of his little brother would have contravened most businesses’ anti-slavery policies.  And our garage looked like a junk yard for most of the summer, much to the disappointment of the neighbours.

 But, given my primary objective was that they had a positive experience and learned something that they would take into their adult lives, these were small prices to pay, and by and large they nailed it.  So now we’ve got the tricky discussion of what to do next year.  They’re already talking about another round of fundraising, employees and possible franchises.  

In 25 years of naming, what's changed?

We do a lot of naming of some sort or another at Olix.  And this weekend I realised that it was 25 years’ ago almost to the day that I started out in the branding game , as a fresh-faced graduate in the naming department at Interbrand.  So what has changed since June 1995?

Two factors have become more pressing.  

Firstly, the trademark issues are harder than ever.  As of today, there are 41,740,444 registered trademarks on the WIPO database.  And keep in mind that ‘near identical’ is still a potential conflict.  If you decide launch your consumer electronics brand as Samsing, expect a cease-and-desist to follow soon thereafter.

Secondly, URLs weren’t a thing in 1995 when I was a kid with hair.  According to data from Verisign, there were 359.8 million registered domain names at the close of 2019’s third quarter. 

When everyone wants a name that is available to register / own as a trademark AND register as a .com, we’re in needle-hiding haystack territory.

One thing is just as it was: the complexity of stakeholders.  Invariably it is more than one person’s baby that is being named, which injects an unpredictable level of subjectivity and difference of taste into the process.  That requires careful managing and a robust process.

But it’s not all blood and tears.  One thing that has become easier is linguistic checks and customer research.  You can get feedback almost instantly these days, whereas in the 90s we were faxing lists around and convening focus groups.

So what does this all mean for naming projects today?

1. It’s a numbers game.  If you’re doing this yourself, look to generate hundreds of ideas, and don’t be disheartened when the trademark registry carpetbombs the majority of them, and then the URL sniper finishes off the bulk of those left standing.

2. Think creatively.  Unlike in most other fields, the legal pre-conditions actually encourage lateral thought and creativity. If the name seems obvious, it probably is unavailable.  Weirder is better (at least from a trademark and URL point of view).

3. Get expert legal help.  Trademark law is a specialist legal field.  I’m not a trademark lawyer, and most likely nor are you, so we should always talk to an expert. I’ve had two clients recently fumble the trademark side of things through legal generalists who underestimated the complexity. Note, you might not actually need or want a registrable trademark. Even if you don’t you should probably make sure you’re not infringing a third party’s pre-existing rights. Let an expert guide you on this.

4. Allow time.  On top of the trademark filing process - which itself takes some time - you’ll almost certainly need to get into contact with third parties to negotiate or reach some sort of mutual agreement.  If you need to launch in 2 weeks time, you’ve failed to plan.

The costs of getting this wrong are not to be underestimated.  The horror stories abound, and when Apple, the world’s most valuable brand, gets it wrong to the tune of $60m, you can be sure this is not trivial stuff we’re talking about.

Alternatively, you could get in touch with us and let us help you through it all.

Talent in the time of COVID-19

Being great to you employees is not just about ‘doing the right thing’ right now.  It’s about what happens when things turn around.  Think about it.  If good people are treated badly they may not leave their employer today as there are sector wide hiring freezes on at the moment.  But as soon as these sectors pick up, they’ll have their CVs out there in a flash, knowing that because they’re good, they’ll find a better employer with relative ease.  And, if they see your employees talking about all the good stuff you’re doing to help them through this, whether on LinkedIn or Glassdoor, they’ll prioritise you.

There is likely to be tremendous churn in all industries.  The actions you take now will determine whether your employees advocate for you as an employer, and whether you’re a beneficiary from this churn or not.  And there is nothing better than authentic advocacy from you current employees to help talent shortlist your business over your competitors as a place to apply for a job. Even better, if you get all your talent attraction ducks in a row now - LinkedIn, Glassdoor, campaigns, referral programmes, etc - you’ll be a magnet for all that fabulous top talent that comes onto the market.

And why am I writing about this?  Brands create value by driving choice…and not just choice among prospects or customers. Employees choose to stay. New talent chooses to apply. The best businesses need the best people, and so they orientate their brands to attract them.  More and more of the work I am doing has an employee/talent/culture dimension to it, as my clients realise that it’s easier to win in the market if you attract the best people first.

EMOTIONAL PROFITEERING

I’m getting pissed off.

Here’s the situation, and I doubt I’m alone.

A brand that has me on their database emails me.

It asks for me to support a cause by paying money in some way

The cause is worthy, and my COVID-charged emotions are running high, and so I’m generally pre-disposed to do so.

The mechanism seems simple enough.  Buy a bit more XX, and help the needy.

But wait.  Let me read that email again.  Ah….the commercial penny drops.  This is emotional profiteering.

Here are three examples I have received this week:

• The worthy note from a chocolate brand urging me to keep buying their product and they’ll support the NHS with their ‘profits’ (which of course is the ultimate get-out clause in a time when few businesses are expecting to operate profitably).  Why not say they’ll give one for one, and then I know they’re contributing too, not just trying to prop up their business?

• The chirpy message from my coffee supplier reassuring me that  in these tricky times…“We don’t want you to have to think about coffee….. Worried about running out? Get more frequent deliveries, and stock up”.  At a time when the UK government is trying to stop us stockpiling, why not support the home workers of the country with some discounted product and recognise the massive opportunity for new customers to trial your product in the process?  

• The holiday cottage company that is offering FREE Refund Protection on all bookings, but then explaining that it is not liable for any cancellations.  Why not recognise that, as the government is encouraging us not to move around, it might, just might, be more responsible to be encouraging people NOT to travel at this point in time, thinking beyond short term profit, and encouraging current customers to defer their bookings. 

(Now is not the time for Corona-shaming, but don’t think I wasn’t tempted to name them)

As I have written below, we all need to be supportive and generous. I don’t mind there being a long term benefit for the brand in all this, but if there is no evident skin the game from the brand, then I’m sorry but I will interrogate these offers with suspicion.  It may not be commercial profiteering in the strict sense, but it’s cynical nonetheless.  And it will have consequences.  That holiday cottage company?   I’m going to be desperate for a holiday after all this.  But not with them!!

We’re in unfamiliar, emotionally-heightened times.  We all want to do our bit to help.  And there are lots of ways that brands can meet these emotional needs: with transparency, honesty and integrity…or with small print, cynicism and spin.  Brands of the world, we are watching your actions and we WILL judge you.

Infectious generosity

Hopefully you’ve read my post in LinkedIn. If not, click here. After a weekend of gloom and of talking to lots of people who I trust and respect, I felt I had an obligation to act in the face of Coronavirus. So here is what I’m going to do:

⁃            I’m going to ask our suppliers where they anticipate issues and how we can help?  I’ve already paid my freelancers early as I know they have mortgages to pay and cashflow may dry up.

⁃            I’m going to give my time as freely and as unconditionally as I can for the next three months to clients who need it most, and trust that they will not take advantage and will compensate me in part or in full when they can. Let’s keep those wheels turning!

⁃            Where I see acts of generosity I’m going to celebrate them, because they deserve it.

⁃            And where we’re the recipient of generosity, I will thank our supporters publicly and wholeheartedly, because that’s the least I can do.

If you’re an existing client, I already know we have a good enough relationship that I can trust you won’t cynically take advantage of this.  

There’s risk here, of course: our goodwill is open to exploitation. It’s a risk I accept because, as I see it, there’s risk in not acting, and I intend to come through this with partners and employees who know my company has their back, and clients who know we’re with them for the long run.

So that’s our approach: Ask-Give-Celebrate-Thank.  Until 15th June.  And beyond if it’s the right thing to do.

But don’t forget that Olix is just a tiny business. If you’re still reading this post, I hope you’ll be thinking hard about how you can be generous and how you can help make it #infectiousgenerosity by sharing with others.

Thanks, Fred

Trust me, I'm a marketer

I posted an article on tone of voice today, and how it can help overcome our natural cynicism regarding marketing messaging and content . You can read it here.

On purpose

With Davos currently underway, and the environment crisis as a central issue, marketers everywhere are limbering up for a major push on brand purpose.  If you’re one of them, you need to stop right now. Because chances are you’re about to head down a fast track to futility.  Let me explain.

In my experience there are three types of ‘purpose’ exercises.

1.      Purpose = bullshit.

This is a cynical attempt to reframe your ordinary ‘greed is good’ business model against the purpose narrative to make it look current and less problematic. It’s likely to be owned by someone in corporate without P&L responsibility and justified on spurious ‘brand image’ grounds. Run away. Or just burn the cash and save time.

2.      Purpose = image correction.
This is a communications-based task designed to tell stakeholders that your business is much more purposeful than they think. In fact, it always has been, it’s just that until now there hasn’t been this purpose-shaped bandwagon to jump on. This is playing catch up, so don’t make it sound like a massive change (it isn’t) or some central guiding principle of the business (if it was why didn’t you say so back then). Some humility here would go a long way. 

3.      Purpose = business strategy.
The business intends to grow and make money in a way that is primarily driven by it’s purpose.  So ‘purpose’ is not some add on. If the CEO is not in the room when you’re discussing purpose, you’re probably in one of the two camps above. Businesses can reposition themselves around purpose, but it’s a ground-up, root-and-branch, pick-your-analogy-for-comprehensive strategic business change. 

The businesses in type 3 don’t need to develop a brand purpose…because they are a ‘purposeful’ business already.  If so, and if you subscribe to the view that brands are the face of the business strategy, then it follows that purposeful businesses will result in purposeful brands.

I get fed up with brand purpose being handed over to the marketing department to ‘do’. So if that happens to you, look your CEO squarely in the eye and call bullshit on him or her.  You do the craft of brand management a massive disservice by not calling this out , and by attempting to help your business bluff its way to being seen as better than it is. The real business change that leaders in Davos are rightly calling for needs to be addressed in the office of the CEO not the CMO.

Awards

We don’t do work to win awards at Olix, we do it to help clients grow their business. That being said, it’s a nice surprise when we get some recognition So it’s thrilling to be able to say we’ve been shortlisted for the European Transform Awards 2020 for our work with IFS. Fingers crossed for final results in early March

Olix clients, doing well

Some news in recent weeks from two recent clients. Unit4, a leader in people-centered, cloud-based Enterprise Resource Planning systems (ERP), announced bookings hit 57% YoY growth, and cloud bookings YoY growth was 122%. Meanwhile, IFS reported a 23% increase in net revenue YTD which has IFS outpacing the market by a factor of three.

How much has our work helped drive this? Hard to say, but the fact that Unit4 was an on-going client for 18 months and IFS has been a periodic client since 2016 suggests we’re doing something right. Keep going, guys!

IFS World Conference

It’s been a busy few weeks.  Two projects have kept us occupied, both in B2B software, both private equity owned.  The first I’ll keep quiet until it goes public later in the year.  But IFS is very much public domain.  We’d done work with IFS back in 2016, and our What’s Next communication platform had been a success.  Earlier this year we refreshed their identity to help bring their ‘for the challengers’ strategy to life.  And then in late August we got the call to help design their World Conference.

There had been some initial work done, but the CMO felt it needed to be better, and we didn’t have much time.  In four days we had three creative concepts in front of them.  On day 5 we were into implementation.  And the artwork requirements were challenging.  Digital and print, animation work, PowerPoint signage (so the team on the ground could edit it) and more.  We had to work with some pre-approved photography assets that needed a lot of Photoshop love.  There was a controversial shift from CMYK to PMS, which meant we had to redo all our print work.  Oh, and continual changes on the messaging.

But it was fun!  Almost like a test to see how responsive we could be.  Perhaps the best example was the request at 5pm to get some copy written and artwork designed for the escalators…for end of day.  IFS’s software can help manage the scheduling around maintenance and so we gently poked some fun at the convention centre, suggesting that if they used IFS they might not have scheduled escalator maintenance in the middle of the conference.  I was on the phone with IFS’s CMO sharing ideas and getting approvals at 11.30pm, and we got there.  One analyst – a critical audience for any B2B software brand – Tweeted that she thought this was “great marketing” so this little bit of last-minuteness really paid off.

And I have to say our design team were amazing in all this.  Every time I felt I was asking too much of them, they reassured me that they felt vested in the project’s success and wanted to get it done as much as the client did. 

Here’s a nice video from IFS that shows the work in situ. 

The rise of strategic partnerships and consortia brands

One of the striking findings from the 2019 KPMG CEO survey – which I’m banging on about this week - is the marked decline in the stated importance of organic growth.  In 2017 72% of CEOs saw organic growth as their principal growth strategy.  In 2019, it was just 25%.  Wow!  M&A, JVs, and outsourcing remain popular but the most important route to growth is strategic partnerships.

On talking to some people here, one tactic that seems to be springing up in support of this phenomenon is the creation of what one could call “consortia brands”.  These are often created around technology standards, and the brand exists as separate from the contributing partners, but is shared in some way by them all.  Android is well known example, owned by Google but shared by Samsung, Huawei, etc.  There are lots of others (Zigbee in IoT for example, which is managed by the consortium of members).  The idea is that a perceptual benefit is gained by participants: they all participate in a shared approach – often a technology-enabled ecosystem - and the beneficial ‘whole’ is great than the sum of the participant parts. 

But for every successful Android, there’s a failed Symbian or Windows Mobile.  Business owners will need to plan carefully here and make sure that, in sharing the limelight, they don’t get crowded off stage.  How can the originating participants create successful consortia brands and avoid the pitfalls?

Firstly, and most obviously, be clear that there is a “whole is greater than sum of parts” value proposition here.  It takes effort and resources above and beyond business as usual, and there needs to be a clear return. If the participants are not seeing a chunky upside in being involved, their support will wain quickly. 

Secondly, gather the right company.  The partners can have a co-branded effect, positive or negative, on each other and on the consortium brand itself.  Shopping malls make sure they have big name retailers in early as these attract the second division participants.  It’s the same principle.  If the big handset manufacturers hadn’t supported Android early, it would be nowhere.

Finally, manage the premium.  Like any brand, a consortium brand will need proper managing: lots of communication that reinforces the value proposition, demonstrates the value in action, shows how the brand is evolving over time.  Make sure the lead participant members make resource available for this - including people! – and that they respect the brand and talk about the consortium in the right way.  The use of consortium brand needs proper governance behind it as well.  For example, ensure the expectations around usage and support are clearly set out in the terms of the brand license (yes, you’ll need one for each participant).

If the KPMG study is right and we see strategic partnerships continue to flourish, we can expect to see more of these consortia brands coming into existence.  But, as there’s no single right model here, the initiators of these consortia brands will need to think through their creation and ongoing management carefully to ensure they are built over time so they add on-going value, and don’t wither on the vine.   As Nicholas Griffin, head of KPMG’s strategy group, writes “moving to a strategic partnerships model is not straightforward…it will require a different set of competencies”.  Brand management is likely to be part of this. 

The trust opportunity

I’m participating in KPMG’s business resilience week this week.  In preparation, KPMG have launched some interesting thought leadership, in particular a global CEO survey. 

Reading the report, I was struck by CEO of TalkTalk Tristia Harrison’s comments. “The lack of trust in the status quo is extraordinary…for businesses that can get it right though, there is a huge opportunity….You’ve got to connect, have a conversation, show integrity.”  We know that trust has been in decline for years now - not least at TalkTalk, which gives her words extra piquancy - but too few businesses are clear on what it takes to mitigate this decline.  In my view, Tristia is spot on, and it’s the sequence here that is so important. 

Firstly you have to connect.  That does not means communicating with a ‘look at my product’ campaign.  That’s not connecting!!  B2B marketers in particular miss this point.  Connection is a very human state – it requires empathy, close focus on personalising the basis on which you look to start a connection, authenticity, a willingness to be vulnerable and more.  And, crucially, it is a necessary precursor for any further commercial discussion to take place.

Secondly, you have to try to have a conversation….as in genuine, two way communication.  It means asking questions, listening, responding, and being prepared to acknowledge you don’t have all the answers.  This is particularly true with considered purchases, or where a relationship is part of the offer.  Too much marketing that purports to start a conversation, is really designed to stimulate social media activity, and the brand in question rarely shows it is listening.  As more sectors move to an “as a service” model, this ability to have genuine conversations will be crucial. 

Finally, showing integrity.  This is a massive topic that embraces sustainability, values, purpose, ethics, diversity and more.  But in essence, what the customer wants to know is, when the chips are down, will the business make the right decision, even if it’s not always the most profitable one.  This is where a price premium and loyalty can be built.  For me, I judge brands on how the cope with problems.  Amazon has replaced a set of headphones for me with next-to-no hassle, demonstrating a huge amount of trust in me, and reinforcing my loyalty along the way.  If Dan Ariely is to be believed, that trust will be routinely abused (not by me, of course!) but I suspect Amazon see this downside as a price worth paying in exchange for the loyalty upside.  Note, the market will judge your integrity by what you do, much more so than what you say.  So don’t make the mistake of trying to communicate your way to having more integrity without the requisite action.  You’ll be busted.

• Connection, at a human level.

• Conversations, that demonstrate you are really listening

• Integrity, manifested in what you do, especially when there’s a tough decision to make.

I’ll be interested in hearing how much of the content circulates around these themes this week.