Originally Published in The Business Journal, December 2006
One of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever received came from the pastor who married my wife and me. We met with him several times before the big day for pre-marriage counseling. I don’t recall the context of the particular session, but I remember his words clearly:
Don’t should all over yourself or others.
Spend life worrying about things you should do, should have done, shouldn’t do, shouldn’t have done, and you’re not going to be very happy. It’s important to plan ahead and establish a life code, sure, but it’s equally important to not be too rigid or beat yourself up too much. Live well, be kind and so on, and things will work out. As far as shoulding on others is concerned, do it and you risk frustrating them and quashing their potential.
Discussing this in the context of advertising and marketing makes more sense than you might think. You see, the good pastor’s words are valuable counsel for people in charge of employees, and employees are crucial to marketing success.
After all, who sells products and services? Who provides the technical and customer support that fulfills a company’s brand promise? Who solves challenges for businesses and their customers? In short, who makes or breaks a business? Employees.
Tom Duncan, founder of the Integrated Marketing Communication graduate program at the University of Colorado-Boulder and author of “IMC: Using Advertising & Promotion to Build Brands,” says this: “For marketing communication messages to have maximum impact, a company must integrate the following: employees, customers, business partners, databases, the corporate culture, corporate learning and the corporate mission.” It’s no coincidence that the first group on this expert’s list is employees.
Successful companies integrate employees into the business as much as possible. One important way to do that is through – get ready for a buzzword – empowerment.
In discussing employee empowerment, Duncan says they need to be “listened to when they have ideas how to better serve customers even when those ideas involve other areas of operations.”
Managers and owners who should on their employees miss those ideas. They cause their people to crawl back into their shells and prevent them helping the company achieve its goals. Ultimately, shoulding makes employees less satisfied with their work and jobs, and less loyal to a company and its mission.
Shoulding can be damaging even if the intention is to provide constructive guidance. Consider the following statements: You should approach the project this way… vs. You could approach the project this way…
Substituting could allows the speaker to make his/her preference known while leaving the door open to alternative, perhaps better, ideas and/or ways of doing things.
We’ve all heard the old cliché: happy employees are productive employees. Here’s another: clichés are clichés because they’re true. Shoulding not only boxes people in, it also stifles creativity and drive, two things that can be very beneficial to a business.
Obviously, there are times when the boss has to be the boss, the final word on how things will be done. But until one of those times comes, it can be advantageous to keep your should where it belongs.
Employees are your most valuable assets. Presumably you hired them for their brains and abilities. Make sure you don’t slam their potential; don’t should all over them.
Showing posts with label Red River Buzz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Red River Buzz. Show all posts
Monday, February 7, 2011
The Bennett Brauer School of Brand Positioning
Originally published in The Business Journal (formerly the Red River Buzz), October 2006
Show me a brand positioning line enclosed in quotation marks, and I’ll show you Bennett Brauer.
You might not have heard of brand but you know them when you see them:
The Real Thing.
We Try Harder.
Just Do It.
We’ll Leave The Light On For You.
Sometimes referred to as slogans or taglines, their purpose is to communicate a single, powerful brand message or promise that resonates strongly with prospects and customers.
You might not have heard of Bennett, either, but you’d know him if you saw him. He was a fall-down, gasp-for-air funny guy who wasn’t trying to be funny at all. But the late Chris Farley, who played Bennett ingeniously on Saturday Night Live, certainly was. You remember Chris, too. He was an incredibly talented, big fellow who, no matter what the situation, seemed to look like it was 3 a.m. at a fraternity party and he’d sucked every last drop out of the keg himself.
Bennett provided commentary during SNL’s Weekend Update segment, where he vividly described his poor hygiene, lack of social grace and anger toward viewers who preferred more attractive news commentators. He used finger quotes to emphasize points while delivering his tirades with a lilting, up and down cadence that complemented the downward two-strokes of his fingers.
Bennett illustrates (insert finger quotes for every quote mark and lower your internal voice while reading the bracketed words): That's right, Bennett Brauer here with another commentary. Didn't think the suits would have me back, perhaps. Well, maybe I'm not “the norm”. I'm not “camera friendly”, I don't “wear clothes that fit me”, I'm not a “heartbreaker”, I don't “own a toothbrush”. When I sleep, I “sweat profusely”…
According to my dictionary, “…air quotes are often used to express satire, sarcasm, irony or euphemism. In print, scare quotes fill a similar purpose.” Scare quotes are “…quotation marks in print used to emphasize a word or phrase to indicate its special status, especially to express doubt about its validity or criticize its use.”
Call me “crazy”, but those definitions don’t sound like anything you want anywhere near your brand identity. Satire, sarcasm, doubt, criticism…ouch. And do you really want your brand positioning line to be a joke? Didn’t think so. You don’t even want to call a joke to mind, especially one that invokes thoughts of poor hygiene. What are you trying to say? That your company “stinks” and “has green teeth”?
Seriously, your brand and the value it brings to your organization is no laughing matter. David Aaker, author of “Building Strong Brands,” talks about brand equity as “…a set of assets (and liabilities) linked to a brand’s name and symbol that adds to or subtracts from the value provided by a product or service to a firm and/or that firm’s customers.”
We’re talking about perceived quality here, one of the four major asset categories in brand equity, along with brand name awareness, brand loyalty and brand associations. According to Aaker, several independent studies have demonstrated that perceived quality drives financial performance.
Using quotation marks around your brand positioning line is a sure sign of small-time. Further, they’re not necessary. Worst of all, in my opinion, they detract from your message and therefore from the power of your brand.
Develop a strong positioning statement and let it stand on its own merit with your logo or organization name. Leave the “jokes” to Bennett.
Show me a brand positioning line enclosed in quotation marks, and I’ll show you Bennett Brauer.
You might not have heard of brand but you know them when you see them:
The Real Thing.
We Try Harder.
Just Do It.
We’ll Leave The Light On For You.
Sometimes referred to as slogans or taglines, their purpose is to communicate a single, powerful brand message or promise that resonates strongly with prospects and customers.
You might not have heard of Bennett, either, but you’d know him if you saw him. He was a fall-down, gasp-for-air funny guy who wasn’t trying to be funny at all. But the late Chris Farley, who played Bennett ingeniously on Saturday Night Live, certainly was. You remember Chris, too. He was an incredibly talented, big fellow who, no matter what the situation, seemed to look like it was 3 a.m. at a fraternity party and he’d sucked every last drop out of the keg himself.
Bennett provided commentary during SNL’s Weekend Update segment, where he vividly described his poor hygiene, lack of social grace and anger toward viewers who preferred more attractive news commentators. He used finger quotes to emphasize points while delivering his tirades with a lilting, up and down cadence that complemented the downward two-strokes of his fingers.
Bennett illustrates (insert finger quotes for every quote mark and lower your internal voice while reading the bracketed words): That's right, Bennett Brauer here with another commentary. Didn't think the suits would have me back, perhaps. Well, maybe I'm not “the norm”. I'm not “camera friendly”, I don't “wear clothes that fit me”, I'm not a “heartbreaker”, I don't “own a toothbrush”. When I sleep, I “sweat profusely”…
According to my dictionary, “…air quotes are often used to express satire, sarcasm, irony or euphemism. In print, scare quotes fill a similar purpose.” Scare quotes are “…quotation marks in print used to emphasize a word or phrase to indicate its special status, especially to express doubt about its validity or criticize its use.”
Call me “crazy”, but those definitions don’t sound like anything you want anywhere near your brand identity. Satire, sarcasm, doubt, criticism…ouch. And do you really want your brand positioning line to be a joke? Didn’t think so. You don’t even want to call a joke to mind, especially one that invokes thoughts of poor hygiene. What are you trying to say? That your company “stinks” and “has green teeth”?
Seriously, your brand and the value it brings to your organization is no laughing matter. David Aaker, author of “Building Strong Brands,” talks about brand equity as “…a set of assets (and liabilities) linked to a brand’s name and symbol that adds to or subtracts from the value provided by a product or service to a firm and/or that firm’s customers.”
We’re talking about perceived quality here, one of the four major asset categories in brand equity, along with brand name awareness, brand loyalty and brand associations. According to Aaker, several independent studies have demonstrated that perceived quality drives financial performance.
Using quotation marks around your brand positioning line is a sure sign of small-time. Further, they’re not necessary. Worst of all, in my opinion, they detract from your message and therefore from the power of your brand.
Develop a strong positioning statement and let it stand on its own merit with your logo or organization name. Leave the “jokes” to Bennett.
Follow the Panda
Originally published in The Business Journal (formerly the Red River Buzz), September 2006
A panda walks into a café, orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires into the air. His confused waiter stops him. “Why?” he asks. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and, as he heads for the door, tosses it over his shoulder.
“I’m a panda,” he says. “Look it up.” The waiter turns to the relevant entry and finds an explanation. Under “Panda,” he reads: “Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.”
This little joke comes from “Eats, Shoots & Leaves” by Lynne Truss. Chuckle-evoking, sure, but it underscores the importance of proper punctuation. Obviously, pandas don’t eat, shoot and leave; they eat shoots and leaves. The misplaced comma changes the whole meaning.
And that’s the point. Punctuation applied wisely and correctly can help an advertising and marketing writer convey meaning more clearly. More than that, it can add umph to copy to make it more interesting.
In his book, “Robert’s Rules of Writing: 101 Unconventional Lessons Every Writer Needs to Know,” Robert Masello points out that punctuation can inject inflection and expression. In Rule #86, he writes about those pesky dashes, hyphens, semicolons, periods and parentheses that, while they seem like so many details, make writing more distinctive.
“You can’t raise your voice on paper, not literally, but an exclamation mark can make your intentions plain. You can’t lower your voice on paper, not literally, but a parenthetical phrase allows you to slip in a sotto voce aside. A dash can do exactly what its name implies – pull your reader brusquely long – and a colon can bring him to a sudden stop…”
All of which can translate into more compelling, effective and memorable advertising and marketing materials.
On the other hand, improper punctuation can create confusion. Consider this theoretical company newsletter sentence:
• The clients, who received a demonstration, were excited about our new product’s potential.
• The clients who received a demonstration were excited about our new product’s potential.
Did all the clients receive a product demonstration and get excited, or only some of them?
Brochures, business letters, TV and radio scripts, annual reports, direct mail – in all, vigorously applied punctuation can positively impact your effort to get through to audience members.
So remember, (affect a syrupy backwoods voice here) punctuation is our friiiiieeeeennnndd. Rather than leaving it as the exclusive domain of your 8th grade schoolmarm, put it to work.
Make your writing clear and memorable; when working in black and white, follow the panda. But if he’s carrying a wildlife manual, duck.
A panda walks into a café, orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires into the air. His confused waiter stops him. “Why?” he asks. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and, as he heads for the door, tosses it over his shoulder.
“I’m a panda,” he says. “Look it up.” The waiter turns to the relevant entry and finds an explanation. Under “Panda,” he reads: “Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.”
This little joke comes from “Eats, Shoots & Leaves” by Lynne Truss. Chuckle-evoking, sure, but it underscores the importance of proper punctuation. Obviously, pandas don’t eat, shoot and leave; they eat shoots and leaves. The misplaced comma changes the whole meaning.
And that’s the point. Punctuation applied wisely and correctly can help an advertising and marketing writer convey meaning more clearly. More than that, it can add umph to copy to make it more interesting.
In his book, “Robert’s Rules of Writing: 101 Unconventional Lessons Every Writer Needs to Know,” Robert Masello points out that punctuation can inject inflection and expression. In Rule #86, he writes about those pesky dashes, hyphens, semicolons, periods and parentheses that, while they seem like so many details, make writing more distinctive.
“You can’t raise your voice on paper, not literally, but an exclamation mark can make your intentions plain. You can’t lower your voice on paper, not literally, but a parenthetical phrase allows you to slip in a sotto voce aside. A dash can do exactly what its name implies – pull your reader brusquely long – and a colon can bring him to a sudden stop…”
All of which can translate into more compelling, effective and memorable advertising and marketing materials.
On the other hand, improper punctuation can create confusion. Consider this theoretical company newsletter sentence:
• The clients, who received a demonstration, were excited about our new product’s potential.
• The clients who received a demonstration were excited about our new product’s potential.
Did all the clients receive a product demonstration and get excited, or only some of them?
Brochures, business letters, TV and radio scripts, annual reports, direct mail – in all, vigorously applied punctuation can positively impact your effort to get through to audience members.
So remember, (affect a syrupy backwoods voice here) punctuation is our friiiiieeeeennnndd. Rather than leaving it as the exclusive domain of your 8th grade schoolmarm, put it to work.
Make your writing clear and memorable; when working in black and white, follow the panda. But if he’s carrying a wildlife manual, duck.
Cuts, Cakes & Copywriters
Originally published in the Red River Buzz, June 2006
Poor Tré.
My wife and I recently decided to save a few bucks by investing $80 in a shaver and grooming our Pomapoo (Pomeranian/Poodle cross) at home. At $35 a cut, five cuts a year, we’d save $95 in the first year and $175 every year thereafter.
Talk about seemly sound logic gone south.
Grooming a dog well takes years of practice and expertise that we didn’t factor into the equation. After a two-hour marathon cutting session, Tré sulked away licking one paw shorn nearly to the skin and scratching long patches of curly white fur on the rest of his body. He looked like he’d been stricken with mange.
When I took him to a groomer, she chuckled. “I once took a class on how to make cakes,” she said. “I threw my first one away and decided to leave cake making to the professionals.”
It was the best, most concise reasoning for using a pro I’ve ever heard. It can be applied to almost anything, especially writing copy for advertising and marketing materials.
Here’s the thing: almost everyone can write. We do it every day in e-mails, notes to our family members, grocery lists. But writing compelling copy that sounds professional and sells? That’s when the years of practice and expertise come into play.
Sure, stringing a few words together is no big deal. But is it patchy in places? Thin or overgrown in others? Does it read like a do-it-yourselfer?
Same goes for design. With any number of programs on the market today, just about anyone could piece together a brochure or ad design. But will the audience take one look and chuck it in the garbage?
I know just enough about good design to be dangerous; anything I could do would definitely look like a home job. That’s why, when my clients need design, I call on one of several highly talented design collaborators; I bring in a professional.
In her article, “Ten Ways to Blow Your Advertising Campaign,” Apryl Duncan, a freelance copywriter, author and online career course instructor who's worked for multimillion-dollar national brands, puts it this way:
“Copywriters are specifically trained to write copy that sells. Graphic designers are trained to create eye-catching materials that make your company stand out. Taking a stab at it yourself may sound like a good idea but the selling message will suffer and your company will lose sales.”
Cuts, cakes or copy – doing it yourself will definitely save a buck today, but long term it’ll cost you.
Just ask Tré.
Poor Tré.
My wife and I recently decided to save a few bucks by investing $80 in a shaver and grooming our Pomapoo (Pomeranian/Poodle cross) at home. At $35 a cut, five cuts a year, we’d save $95 in the first year and $175 every year thereafter.
Talk about seemly sound logic gone south.
Grooming a dog well takes years of practice and expertise that we didn’t factor into the equation. After a two-hour marathon cutting session, Tré sulked away licking one paw shorn nearly to the skin and scratching long patches of curly white fur on the rest of his body. He looked like he’d been stricken with mange.
When I took him to a groomer, she chuckled. “I once took a class on how to make cakes,” she said. “I threw my first one away and decided to leave cake making to the professionals.”
It was the best, most concise reasoning for using a pro I’ve ever heard. It can be applied to almost anything, especially writing copy for advertising and marketing materials.
Here’s the thing: almost everyone can write. We do it every day in e-mails, notes to our family members, grocery lists. But writing compelling copy that sounds professional and sells? That’s when the years of practice and expertise come into play.
Sure, stringing a few words together is no big deal. But is it patchy in places? Thin or overgrown in others? Does it read like a do-it-yourselfer?
Same goes for design. With any number of programs on the market today, just about anyone could piece together a brochure or ad design. But will the audience take one look and chuck it in the garbage?
I know just enough about good design to be dangerous; anything I could do would definitely look like a home job. That’s why, when my clients need design, I call on one of several highly talented design collaborators; I bring in a professional.
In her article, “Ten Ways to Blow Your Advertising Campaign,” Apryl Duncan, a freelance copywriter, author and online career course instructor who's worked for multimillion-dollar national brands, puts it this way:
“Copywriters are specifically trained to write copy that sells. Graphic designers are trained to create eye-catching materials that make your company stand out. Taking a stab at it yourself may sound like a good idea but the selling message will suffer and your company will lose sales.”
Cuts, cakes or copy – doing it yourself will definitely save a buck today, but long term it’ll cost you.
Just ask Tré.
Stone Soup for the Sale
Originally published in The Red River Buzz, February 2006
Turns out advertisers and marketers can learn a lot from Chinese folklore.
“Stone Soup,” one of my 4-year-old daughter’s favorite books, is a wonderful tale about three Chinese monks who encounter a village where the people have lost trust in strangers and each other. The villagers work hard, but only for themselves, and they have little to do with one another. To rekindle their happiness and sense of community, the monks teach them how to make stone soup.
On a fire in the village square, the monks place a pot filled with water and three round, smooth stones. The curious villagers gaze out at the scene from their locked windows (Attention).
As word of the soup being made from stones spreads, the villagers venture out to see just what this stone soup is all about (Interest).
“Old-style stone soup requires salt and pepper,” says one monk. “Alas, we have none.” A villager runs to his home and returns with salt, pepper and even a few other spices. “The last time we had stones of this size and color,” another monk says, “carrots make the broth delightfully sweet.” A woman fetches all the carrots she can carry and dumps them into the pot.
Something magical begins to happen. Each villager wants to make the soup better (Desire) and gives what he or she has: bean curd, noodles, pea pods, cabbages, onions, ginger root, lily buds… (Action). The soup bubbles and simmers, and the smell is most agreeable.
At last the soup is ready. The villagers gather together for a rich feast for the first time in anyone’s memory. After a night of shared celebration, they welcome the monks into their homes and give them comfortable places to sleep.
To make the sale, we must do as the monks: Grab attention, then create interest and desire to produce action. Do that, and rewards (Sales) will follow.
Alas, if only marketing were as simple as making stone soup.
Turns out advertisers and marketers can learn a lot from Chinese folklore.
“Stone Soup,” one of my 4-year-old daughter’s favorite books, is a wonderful tale about three Chinese monks who encounter a village where the people have lost trust in strangers and each other. The villagers work hard, but only for themselves, and they have little to do with one another. To rekindle their happiness and sense of community, the monks teach them how to make stone soup.
On a fire in the village square, the monks place a pot filled with water and three round, smooth stones. The curious villagers gaze out at the scene from their locked windows (Attention).
As word of the soup being made from stones spreads, the villagers venture out to see just what this stone soup is all about (Interest).
“Old-style stone soup requires salt and pepper,” says one monk. “Alas, we have none.” A villager runs to his home and returns with salt, pepper and even a few other spices. “The last time we had stones of this size and color,” another monk says, “carrots make the broth delightfully sweet.” A woman fetches all the carrots she can carry and dumps them into the pot.
Something magical begins to happen. Each villager wants to make the soup better (Desire) and gives what he or she has: bean curd, noodles, pea pods, cabbages, onions, ginger root, lily buds… (Action). The soup bubbles and simmers, and the smell is most agreeable.
At last the soup is ready. The villagers gather together for a rich feast for the first time in anyone’s memory. After a night of shared celebration, they welcome the monks into their homes and give them comfortable places to sleep.
To make the sale, we must do as the monks: Grab attention, then create interest and desire to produce action. Do that, and rewards (Sales) will follow.
Alas, if only marketing were as simple as making stone soup.
Make a Positive Clatter
Originally Published in The Red River Buzz, December 2005
I’m in the story-telling business. My stories are about people, companies, organizations, products, services and causes. Some are short,
some are long; they last 30 seconds or 2,000 words. In all I strive to do one thing: sell by making prospects hear the footprints.
Before I get to that, here’s a little story…
When I was a wee piker, we had a great Christmas tradition. We kids received presents stacked under our tall, festive tree in the living room, but we also received gifts from Santa. They were from my parents, too, of course, but we didn’t know that.
Each year my folks enlist a friend to deliver Santa gifts right about the time we’d finish opening family presents. “Santa” always made a racket of the “Arose-Such-A-Clatter” variety, and we kids would run out back hoping to catch a glimpse. One year, I noticed fresh footprints in the snow leading to and from a stack of presents on the top step. The clatter and footprints, presents and candy canes, toy soldiers and racecars all jumbled my excited head. I ran back inside and blurted, “Santa was here! I heard his footprints!”
Obviously, no one hears footprints. But here’s the thing – to sell anything, you have to enable your prospects to do just that. You need to tell stories that develop a positive image of your company, your product, your service. It has to be something they can get excited about. (Look at St. Nick. Even after millions of tellings, his story still elicits anticipation and exhilaration while remaining so…believable).
Anything you do – ads, brochures, direct mail – should create a positive impression in your prospects’ minds. Leave a footprint so when they think about buying in your category, your brand will be the first thing they hear. That’s top-of-mind, and that’s what advertising and marketing is all about.
Tell your story in as many different venues that make sense as often as you can. Tell it well and, like a moment touched with Christmas magic, your prospects will hear your footprint.
I’m in the story-telling business. My stories are about people, companies, organizations, products, services and causes. Some are short,
some are long; they last 30 seconds or 2,000 words. In all I strive to do one thing: sell by making prospects hear the footprints.
Before I get to that, here’s a little story…
When I was a wee piker, we had a great Christmas tradition. We kids received presents stacked under our tall, festive tree in the living room, but we also received gifts from Santa. They were from my parents, too, of course, but we didn’t know that.
Each year my folks enlist a friend to deliver Santa gifts right about the time we’d finish opening family presents. “Santa” always made a racket of the “Arose-Such-A-Clatter” variety, and we kids would run out back hoping to catch a glimpse. One year, I noticed fresh footprints in the snow leading to and from a stack of presents on the top step. The clatter and footprints, presents and candy canes, toy soldiers and racecars all jumbled my excited head. I ran back inside and blurted, “Santa was here! I heard his footprints!”
Obviously, no one hears footprints. But here’s the thing – to sell anything, you have to enable your prospects to do just that. You need to tell stories that develop a positive image of your company, your product, your service. It has to be something they can get excited about. (Look at St. Nick. Even after millions of tellings, his story still elicits anticipation and exhilaration while remaining so…believable).
Anything you do – ads, brochures, direct mail – should create a positive impression in your prospects’ minds. Leave a footprint so when they think about buying in your category, your brand will be the first thing they hear. That’s top-of-mind, and that’s what advertising and marketing is all about.
Tell your story in as many different venues that make sense as often as you can. Tell it well and, like a moment touched with Christmas magic, your prospects will hear your footprint.
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