Tired of reading articles about how good Apple is at branding?

Or Zappos and their over-the-top customer service?

Or SouthWest Airlines and their unique approaches to people management?

Many people say they really can’t learn much from case studies like these because the companies are so big and enjoy huge marketing budgets, operational efficiencies, and a loyal customer base.

Advantages most businesses only dream of.

So how do you get the word out when you only have a few thousand dollars in your marketing budget?

Aren’t there small businesses facing challenges worth profiling?

Yes.

Take a look at Madsen Cycles.

This small company is doing a lot of things right.

The cycling world is notoriously competitive. The market leader, Trek, sucks up a lot of media attention (thanks in no small part to Lance Armstrong). And there are literally dozens of competitors fighting for the rest of the market: BMC, Felt, Colnago, Schwinn, Cannondale, Ibis, Klein, Lemond, Time, Merckx, Cervelo, Orbea, Pinarello, Scott, Seven, Litespeed, Specialized, Bianchi—the list goes on.

So how does a new start up compete against all these established brands?

Here are a few of the things Madsen is doing right:

Start with a remarkable product.

Rather than creating yet another look-alike road or mountain bike, company founder Jared Madsen focuses on an entirely different category—the cargo bike or bucket bike.

It looks totally different. Almost unexpected.

There’s a good chance you’ve never seen anything like it.

You want to say to the person next to you, “Check that out.”

It’s not just the look. Jared has introduced a lot of unique features you won’t find on other bikes—a massive bucket for hauling groceries or kids, an attached, automatic lock so you never worry about security, and originally designed components like the long stem that helps the bike ride more comfortably.

In part, because of its unique design, Madsen cycles has been featured in several publications, most recently Outside Magazine.

It’s a truly remarkable bike.

Find a new, unique market.

Madsen Cycles doesn’t make bikes for hard-core racers or mountain bikers. Instead, this is a commuter bike. It’s the perfect bike for a mom running errands around the neighborhood or a dad wanting to take the kids out for a spin.

That doesn’t mean that hard-core bikers don’t want one.  They do, as a second bike to tool around town on.

Madsen Cycles makes bikes, but they don’t worry too much about Trek and other big manufacturers (yet) because they don’t make those bikes.

Madsen Cycles has a great story.

Jared, a bike lover and engineer, had the idea that his bike could be doing more. After seeing European bikes with a large bucket on the front, he bolted a wheel-barrow bucket to the front of his bike and started riding around the neighborhood. But he didn’t like the awkward center of gravity, so he moved the bucket to the back and started building prototypes. It didn’t take long before other people wanted one and soon he was making them for everyone. Read more here.

Madsen uses a very consistent look and feel.

Check out Madsen’s website. If you knew nothing else about the company, you would likely assume that this is a much bigger business that it actually is.

They’ve invested in a professional design for their logo and website and use a professional photographer to take pictures of their products. They’ve also invested a lot of time and effort into creating an attractive booth for use at tradeshows and expos. They could have skimped on these things and gotten by, but the attention to detail shows through in the quality of their communications.

The result is a brand identity that is consistent and likeable.

They use social media to get the word out.

Madsen can’t afford a full-page placement in Bicycling Magazine, and it’s doubtful that their customers read Bicycling anyway.

Instead, they rely on word of mouth from their customers. And they seed those conversations with updates and videos on their blog, at YouTube, on Facebook and Twitter.

Their videos smartly feature Jared talking about what makes a Madsen different and point out many of the unique features you get with a Madsen Cycle that other bikes don’t offer. They are simple and effective. Here’s an example (more here).

Madsen has also sponsored several events to show-off their products and introduce their bikes to new audiences.

The Madsen Cycle Link Contest

To encourage their customers and fans to spread the word about Madsen, they run a contest every year. When fans post a new link from their websites or blogs back to Madsen, they are entered to win a new bike (they’re not exactly cheap, so this is a great prize). Not only does this spread the word, but it provides link-backs to their website which helps with their organic search rank. The company even provides several banner ads of different sizes to make it as easy as possible for customers to spread the word. Like this one:

Some day Madsen Cycles may be a big company with all the advantages of big budgets, lots of employees, and operational efficiencies. But for now, they’re a small company doing a lot of things right.

What can you take from their experience?

Full disclosure: Though I haven’t done any work for Madsen Cycles, I consider Jared a friend and have had the pleasure of riding along side him (or more truthfully, way behind him) on several morning rides. And I want a Madsen.

When it comes to telling a brand story consistently over time (and by time we mean decades), very few brands do it as well as Nike. Their most recent ad, “Say Boom” is just another chapter in a compelling brand story about the joy of sports and game changing moments. Check it out:

In his excellent book, Predictably Irrational, author Dan Ariely writes about how people interact in two different ways, socially and commercially. Social exchanges are freely given, without an expectation of repayment—helping a neighbor move a sofa, helping a coworker jump start a dead battery, or opening a door for someone. These are the every day kindnesses that make life civil. On the other hand, Market exchanges depend on money changing hands in return for a product or service—commerce.

Trouble sets in when these behavioral norms collide, introducing market conditions into a social situation. Placing an economic price on a social exchange affects how each party behaves, often negatively. Ariely uses the example of a man offering a few hundred dollars to “even up” on his mother-in-law’s love. It simply isn’t possible, so the idea is almost offensive. He also offers the example of a day care center that introduced fees for picking up a child late, hoping to discourage this behavior, only to see late pick-ups increase. Ariely writes:

“So we live in two worlds: one characterized by social exchanges and the other characterized by market exchanges. And we apply different norms to these two kinds of relationships. Moreover, introducing market norms into social exchanges… violates the social norms and hurts the relationships. Once this type of mistake has been committed, recovering a social relationship is difficult.”

Consumers aren’t the only ones that make this mistake. Brands do it too.

Think of a brand with a market position that says, “We’re your friend” or “We’re on your side.” A few examples that come to mind:

Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.
Zion’s Bank. We haven’t forgotten who keeps us in business.
Verizon. We never stop working for you.

This is great brand positioning: brand as friend, helper, or care giver.

Until the brand introduces a market exchange into the story.

If Zion’s Bank charges a overdraft fee, or eliminates free checking for students because it isn’t profitable, the market exchange collides with the social norm and consumers question whether they really do remember who keeps them in business.

If State Farm cancels a 20-year-old policy because the home owner makes her first claim, or refuses to pay a claim that the customer feels entitles to, the consumer might feel that State Farm wasn’t there.

If Verizon’s network drops calls or customer service is less than helpful, the niceties of the social exchange run headlong into the market exchange reality.

The result? The positive social norm goes away. As Ariely writes, “Once the bloom is off the rose—once a social norm is trumped by a market norm—it will rarely return.” Then your brand story is worthless.

If your brand depends a market position characterized by social exchanges, it is important to manage the brand experience to ensure market exchanges don’t interfere and destroy the social relationship.

Click here to buy and read Ariely’s book, Predictably Irrational and learn more about this phenomena.

A long time ago, in third grade, I think, I did a little experiment in school. The teacher passed out paper, then asked everyone in the class to draw a mark on the left side of their paper.

Then, she helped us measure about eight inches and place a second mark on the right side of the paper. She then asked us to close our right eyes and focus our left eyes on the mark on the right side of the paper.

By moving the paper closer or farther away, the mark on the left would disappear.

I had discovered my blind spot.

The mark was still on the paper, but I couldn’t see it—even though it was right in front of my eyes.

Try it for yourself.

At the right distance, the mark on the left moves into a space that your eye isn’t able to see.

…

Blind spots are everywhere.

Michael Lewis’ fantastic book, The Big Short, tells the story of bond traders who created credit default swaps out of incredibly risky mortgage holdings and yet almost no one could see the risks.

It was right there in front of everyone, but everyone was making so much money that almost no one saw what was really going on. This blind spot cost financial companies trillions of dollars and took the American economy to the brink.

(Another of Lewis’ books, Money Ball, is about blind spots in baseball management—also an excellent read).

Blind spots hold us back.

They keep us from seeing vital information.

Even though it’s right in front of us.

I like this example of a blind spot shared by Roy Williams in his Monday Morning Memo a few months ago:

My partner Peter Nevland recently bumped into the owner of a bottled water service who asked him for some free advice.

Peter asked, “Why should the customer of another water service switch to yours?”

“We’re locally owned.” “Ten percent of our profits go to charity,” blah, blah, blah.

Peter was unimpressed. 

Exasperated and grasping at straws, the man mentioned his water had recently been voted “Best Tasting” by the readers of an obscure, local business journal.

“Why do you think you won?”

The man hung his head, “We cheat.”

“How?”

“Our water is saturated with dissolved oxygen, twice the amount found in regular water.”

“What does that do?”

“Dissolved oxygen is what makes water taste good. It’s why cold water tastes better than warm water. Cold water contains more dissolved oxygen.”

“You’re saying your room temperature water tastes like cold water?”

The man nodded his head.

“Do you always saturate your water with dissolved oxygen?”

“Yes, why do you ask?”

SAD ENDING: Peter was unable to convince the man to promote his better tasting water with dissolved oxygen. I swear I’m not making this up. The man remained convinced his ads needed to say, “We’re locally owned and give ten percent of our profits to charity.”

Blind spots can keep us from telling the right story about our brands. They keep us from seeing things from our customer’s perspective. Or from our employee’s point of view. Instead, we think we need to be like everyone else.

What are you doing to identify your blind spots?

One of my favorite paintings hangs in a plain white wood frame at the Art Institute of Chicago. Chances are you’ve seen it—if not the actual painting, you’ve no doubt seen a print or mural based on the painting (there’s one a the Mall of America) or in any of these movies: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Die Hard with a Vengeance, Wall-E, or Barbarella.

It’s called Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.

And it’s one of the first, maybe best, examples of a style called pointillism.

The artist who painted it, neo-impressionist Georges Seurat, was heavily influenced by scientists of his day who write about color and how two colors placed side by side, create a third color at the edges when viewed from a distance.

Rather than blend the pigments on a pallet then spread them on the canvas, Seurat painstakingly placed tiny dots of paint close together. This technique allows the viewer’s eye to blend the colors optically. The effect is more brilliant and richer colors than standard brush strokes create.

It took Seurat two years to paint it.

His planning was meticulous. He created roughly 60 different studies to guide his final work.

Take a closer look at Seurat’s work. What do you see?

People relaxing on the banks of the Siene. If asked, we could count the number of boats on the water or people lounging on the grass—and we would come up with the same number. We would likely agree on the color parasol held by the woman in the middle of the painting or color of the dress worn by the little girl next to her.

But Seurat didn’t paint any parasols or little girls or even people in a park. He painted thousands of small dots of paint on a canvas.

The images we see when we look at the painting are created by our minds as they combine the different dots into shapes and colors.

Seurat’s careful planning insures we all see similar things when we view the painting.

Do you brand like Georges Seurat paints?

Do you carefully plan each customer experience, every communication, and each interaction your customers have with your brand? Do your customers see all the ways your brand communicates and walk away with the same larger picture in their minds?  Do you take the time necessary to bring it all together?

Or do you brand like Jackson Pollock painted (see yesterday’s post)?

It took Seurat two years to create his masterpiece… carefully planning every dot of paint.

Don’t expect to create yours with a few weeks or with any less effort.

Posted by Rob Marsh.

Time magazine called him Jack the Dripper.

And that’s a pretty good description for the best known abstract impressionist, the artist who created dozens of paintings that made people in museums around the world say, “My seven-year-old could have painted that.”

He painted the most expensive painting ever sold at auction—a work of art titled #5, valued at $140 million in 2006 (pictured to the left).

Jackson Pollock painted by dripping, flipping, and throwing paint onto the canvas. At one point, he numbered his paintings, rather than naming them, to keep viewers from reading any unintended meaning into his work.

Pollock’s technique makes for some beautiful paintings, but others are messy and intentionally confusing. Of his work, Mr. Pollock said,

“When I am in my painting, I’m not aware of what I’m doing. It is only after a sort of ‘get acquainted’ period that I see what I have been about. I have no fear of making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own.”

Today, many brand owners take a “Jackson Pollock Approach” to managing their brands. They drip, flip, and throw different ideas, strategies, and messages at the canvas and go with whatever sticks.

They are inconsistent in using colors and design. They speak with more than one voice. They change experiences and products on a whim.

Like Pollock, the are unaware of what they are doing in the moment.

The result is something like abstract impressionism. There’s no clear idea to understand or remember. No take away for the consumer.

This is the path to brand failure.

Unfortunately, in order to succeed in a crowded marketplace, there is no ‘get acquainted period’ where a brand can find its voice.

All of the individual pieces of your brand (product design, business card, pricing strategy, website, invoice, user experience, customer service, email, packaging, etc.) must work to produce a consistent message— a recognizable, memorable, and likeable story for your brand. From the beginning.

Jackson Pollock was a brilliant artist. His approach worked well for painting, but is a disaster for creating a brand.

The painting above is untitled, painted in 1949. Jackson Pollock died on this day, 54 years ago.

Posted by Rob Marsh.

Taglines are like logos. Just about every brand has one. And consumers tend to remember only the very best ones.

Do you recognize these?

“How well do you share?”

“Higher standards.”

“For life.”

“We Want You to Live.”

Me neither.

Those taglines were used by Ricoh, Bank of America, Volvo, and Mobil.

And they are bad.

Why?

They don’t say anything. They don’t relate to the brand’s story. And they aren’t aspirational. Like most taglines, they seem to be an after thought or a too-simple restatement of the brand strategy.

I imagine that the creative team working on the Ricoh tagline had a brief that talked a lot about how Ricoh makes document sharing easy. Hence the tagline. It addresses the needs of the brief, but doesn’t seem to mean much to the consumer.

So how do you make sure the tagline you use is great? Do one of these four things:

1. Great taglines tell a story. (If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you knew this was coming.)

My favorite tagline of all time was used by Avis: We Try Harder. It echoed the story told by the advertising that since Avis wasn’t the largest car rental agency, they had to work harder to earn your business. So the cars were cleaner. The gas tank was full. The attendant was nicer. They couldn’t afford not to do the right thing. And the tagline echoes that story. Brilliant.

Other great taglines that tell a story: American Express: Don’t Leave Home without It. Apple: Think Different. Timex: Takes a Lickin’, and Keeps on Tickin’. GE: We Bring Good Things to Life.

2. Great taglines are aspirational.

The most famous tagline of all is probably Nike’s Just Do It. It’s easy for the consumer to relate to this idea—no matter what “it” is. Ever wondered if you can run a marathon? Nike gives you permission to Just Do It.

Other great taglines that are aspirational: The few, The Proud, The Marines. Virginia Slims: You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby. U.S. Army: Be All You Can Be.

3. Great taglines emphasize a point of difference.

The best example of this kind of tagline probably belongs to M&M’s: They Melt in Your Mouth, Not in Your Hands.  Unlike other chocolate treats, M&M’s has a candy shell so they didn’t melt quickly and make a mess when poured into warm hands. No other chocolate candy could make that claim. It is unique to one brand.

Other great taglines that emphasize a point of difference: Papa John’s: Better Ingredients, Better Pizza. BMW: The Ultimate Driving Machine. Miller Lite: Tastes Great, Less Filling. Bounty: The Quicker Picker-Upper.

4. Great taglines often emphasize the brand name.

If you grew up in the Seventies or Eighties, you probably remember the television commercials with the tagline “When E. F. Hutton talks, people listen.” There were several versions including school children, business men at the airport, and this one:

Okay, so the execution is a little campy. But the tagline is memorable and repeats the company name. It’s almost impossible NOT to remember it.

Other great taglines that emphasize the brand name: Have a Coke and a Smile. See the USA in Your Chevrolet. You’re in Good Hands with Allstate.

And of course, if you can find an idea that does all four, you’ve got a truly great tagline.

Mastercard’s Priceless campaign and tagline is a good example of this.

1. It re-iterates the story told in the advertising.
2. It’s aspirational.
3. It claims a point of difference.
4. It emphasizes the brand name.

“There are some things money can’t buy, for everything else, there’s Mastercard.”

By now you know your brand needs a story. But how do your consumers, employees, and other stakeholders use that story? Here are four ways that the people engaged with your brand might use yours:

Brand stories as mission statements.
This is generally how most of us think about the narratives we use with our brands. It’s the story that gives purpose to everything we do (as brand owners). It is the story we hope our customers will relate to, and possibly adopt as their own. It’s the story most easily communicated in advertising and other big brand initiatives.

Stories like “We empower athletic accomplishment, overpower the obstacles, and encourage our customers just do it” as told by Nike. Or “We fight to make air travel affordable and fun for everyone, not just the privileged few” as told by Southwest Airlines. Or, “We deliver insanely great service” as told by Zappos (and Nordstrom).

At the very best, brand stories as mission statements inform every experience a customer has with a particular brand—reinforcing the narrative with each interaction.

Brand stories as proof points.
Not all brands use narratives that work as mission statements. Sometimes a brand story works better as a proof point to entice consumers to try the product.

A few years ago, I wrote about Buckley’s, a brand of cough medicine that uses a compelling story to turn a negative product feature into a positive reason to believe (you can read that post here).

The idea is, Buckley’s tastes so bad, it must work. No one would be dumb enough to sell something this nasty if it didn’t do what it claims.

Buckley’s story is a proof point and gives consumers a compelling reason to buy their product instead of other, better tasting options. But it wouldn’t work well as a mission statement. Buckley’s isn’t about making bad-tasting products. Rather, they make effective disease treatments, at least one of which just happens to taste bad.

Brand stories as a badge.
Other brands have stories that a consumer uses to imply very specific things about what kind of person they are. “Choosy moms choose Jif” is a great example of taking a commodity product and giving it a story that says using this peanut butter means you care more than moms who don’t choose Jif.

Fashion brands often use stories as badges. The same is true of many automobile, cigarette, and soda brands. Advertising infuses these brands with meaning and consumers use the brands to signal those meanings to their peers.

iPhone anyone?

Brand stories as props or tools.
Marketers don’t like to think of their brands as tools used by unengaged consumers, but often this is the reality. We use dozens of brands simply to get a job done. These are branded commodities and are easily replaced by a similar product as price or availability changes. The can of tomatoes, carton of milk, or pack of tube socks.

To be sure, some consumers will care, but for many (even most) these are simple props in their lives, tools to get a job done. The story matters very little.

A good brand manager works hard to lift his brands into one of the other categories: mission statement, proof point, or badge and as far away from tool as possible.

Have I missed any ways brand stories are used by customers? If so, please add them in the comments.

A big misconception held by many brand managers is that their product or brand needs a compelling story that consumers will adopt as their own.

The idea goes like this: Nike tells a powerful brand story about athletic accomplishment, which is summed up with their tagline: “Just Do It”. This idea is retold over and over in Nike’s advertising (visuals, copy, music, product design) and by the athletes that endorse Nike.

When consumers hear Nike’s story, they are enthralled and want to be part of it—to adopt it as their own. So they buy Nike stuff. Wearing Nike signals to everyone around them that they are the kind of people who “Just Do It”. That is their story.

Except it doesn’t really work that way.

Most of the time it’s the other way around.

Consumers don’t usually adopt a product’s brand story as their own.

Instead, they have a personal story and when brands fit into them, they buy those brands.

The reality goes like this: A runner is training for her first marathon. When choosing the shoes she will train in, she considers a couple of options—Nike, New Balance, Saucony… Which brand’s story fits best with her world view?

The brand story that supports her personal story determines which shoes she buys.

Which means the story your brand tells is important, but how it supports your customer’s stories is critical (it’s that old macro/micro thing again).

How do the stories you tell support your customer’s personal stories?

But that won’t stop them from trying.

Take canned tomatoes.

I buy Hunt’s Canned Tomatoes instead of Del Monte Canned Tomatoes. Why?

Let’s just say it has nothing to do with either product’s Facebook page or twitter feed. (Yes, they’re both on FB.)

But is there really a difference between these products?

Both are cans filled with cooked tomatoes. Both feature tomatoes on the label. Both will make decent spaghetti sauce, salsa, or casseroles.

But I reach for the Hunt’s. Why?

Not because they have a compelling brand story (if they do, I don’t know it). Rather it’s what mom used to buy. The same reason I choose laundry detergent, toothpaste, and dishwashing soap.

Habit drives a lot of purchases. Maybe most of them.

But that doesn’t stop brand managers from trying to attract customers with a story.

Hunt’s talks about flash steaming.

Del Monte talks about savings.

Does it make you want to buy?

Maybe.

A lot of commodity brands struggle to create a compelling reason to buy their product. They try positioning (fresh, cheap, easy to use, quality, natural, new and improved!). They publish recipes that call for their brands. They run coupons and promotions.
But in the end, there’s really no real story to share. And who wants a conversation with their canned tomatoes?

Selling tomatoes (and most other commodities) comes down to creating familiarity—seeing the cans in the pantry and on the store shelf—becoming a trusted member of the family.

There may still be a story there, but can Hunt’s own it? Can they tell it in a way people will pay attention?