by John Furgurson

Simon Edwards, Brand Manager at 3M, recently started a lively online discussion around this question: “What are the common attributes of iconic brands?

He opened it up on Brand 3.0 — a Linkedin Group that includes 4,363 branding consultants, practitioners, creative directors, gurus and wannabes. It was an intelligent, worthwhile discussion that hit all the hot buttons of the branding world.

But we were preaching to the choir.

So in an effort to reach a few business people who aren’t completely “inside the bottle,”  I’d like to cover the high points of the discussion and add a few examples…

•  “An iconic brand plays a valued role in a consumer’s life. It delivers a feeling that the consumer just can’t get from any other brand. That feeling may be security, safety, familiarity, excitement, satisfaction, indulgence or many others.” - Andy Wright

Here’s an example: I’m a loyal Audi owner. Over the holiday weekend I had to drive the Q7 two and half hours on a narrow, icy, highway that’s sketchy even on a clear, summer night.  I felt all those things… security, safety, familiarity, excitement, satisfaction, indulgence.  The trip wasn’t exactly fun, but it reinforced all my beliefs about the brand. It played a vital role in that little part of my life.

I couldn’t have felt safer in any other vehicle, short of a semi truck.

“The 5 criteria of iconic brands are:  relevancy, competitiveness, authenticity, clarity of promise, consistency of communication. The hard work is the proactive management of the brand (including product development) to ensure the five criteria are delivered.” - Ed Burghard

I particularly like Ed’s point here about proactive, ongoing brand management.

Many people seem to think of branding as a one-time event. — do it and it’s done. But that’s not it at all.  You won’t stay competitive long enough to become iconic if you’re not constantly minding your brand. It’s a never-ending effort that should be intertwined into your day-to-day business.

• “One element that has not been discussed is success. No brand can reach iconic status without being successful in achieving it’s purpose. Part is creating these wonderful brand connections – authentically, emotionally, as an experience. Part is communicating with clarity and consistency. Part is delivering on the promise. But a vital component is to have delivered results and exceeded expectations… yes?’    - Ed Holme

Patagonia is a brand with a very clear sense of purpose and a compelling story to tell. When that story is told over time, it establishes that intangible, emotional  connection that inspires people and fuels success. What is the purpose of your business, beyond making a profit?

• “I would like to add ‘Leadership’ to the list of attributes already mentioned. 
It’s not about market share, though; iconic brands play by their own rules. These brands tend to break the preconceived notion of function, service, style or culture, catching the competition off guard and finding unprecedented loyalty”… – Stephen Abbott

This was a contribution that really stood out. I believe leadership is a highly overlooked component of branding. If you don’t take a genuine leadership position in some aspect of  your business, your brand will eventually flounder. (Can you say GM?)

You don’t have to be the market leader to have an iconic brand. Look at Apple. The iconic leader in the computing world only has 9.6% market share in computers. What’s more,  an iconic brand does not guarantee business success. Farrells Ice Cream parlors were iconic in this part of the country, and they went belly up.  Was Saturn iconic?  Certainly for a few years in  automotive circles. What about Oldsmobile and Plymoth? Many icons of industry have fallen in the past year.

• To build on the ideas related to story telling…  Iconic brands often align with an archetypal character and story which is instantly recognizable, psychologically stimulating and meaningful. Coke embodies the Innocent archetype as expressed through their advertising from polar bears to Santa Claus or the classic ‘I’d like to teach the world to sing’ campaign.” - Brenton Schmidt

Executives at Coke shattered that innocence when they changed the beloved formula to “New Coke.”  Probably the single biggest branding screw up of the last 50 years. One woman, who hadn’t had a Coke in 25 years, called to complain that they were “messing with her childhood.”  Now that’s brand loyalty!

“Some underlying attributes  tend to be focus, clarity and authenticity. However, all iconic brands tend to connect customers with an overreaching philosophy that fosters emotional connection between the customer and the brand.

Examples of brands and the emotions they foster:

- Nike = Performance. “I feel like I can run faster or jump higher when I wear my Nikes.”

- Target = Affordable Design. “At Wal-Mart, I get the best price. At Target, I get style and price.”

- Apple = CounterCulture. “I want style, simplicity and usability. My Mac says to the world that I’m different and unique. In short, I hate Windows and everything it represents.”

- Jason Milicki

I’m writing this blog on a MacBook Pro, and I’d add the word Contrarian.  Proudly contrarian, even. (My kids helped make sushi for Thanksgiving, and my son dubbed it a “Contrarian Turkey Dinner.” I think I’m handing it down.)

Finally, here’s one parting thought on iconic brands, from yours truly.:

You don’t have to be  a multinational company, or even the biggest player in your niche, to become a successful icon in your own right. Gerry Lopez is an icon in the world of surfing, yet unknown to the general public and to Wall Street.

If you want to build an iconic brand — even a small one — start with passion, purpose and focus. Then work your ass off.

Follow the Brand Insight Blog  on Twitter: Brandsight

As you must know, I work in two restaurants. My lunch job is at Michael’s (high-end chain steakhouse). My dinner job is at Carney’s Corner (somewhat high-end Mom ‘n Pop prime steakhouse). Both restaurants have been hit by the receding economy the last couple years.

My personal stats on Lunch:

• I went from 4-5 lunch shifts a week, to 2-3 + an O/C.
• The money used to average out weekly to $100+ per shift; that’s gone down to about $75.
• Meantime, we used to run 5 or 6 servers. Now we go with 3 or 4.

Stats on Dinner:

• I used to have 4 shifts, now I have 3.
• We used to make a reliable $200+ weekend nights and $150 per weekday night. That’s dropped to about $160 and $100.
• Used to be 4 servers weekends, 3 weekdays. Now it’s 3 and 2.

At Carney’s the owners’ answer to falling business is to cut prices. And that’s their only answer.

I addressed this in abbreviated form a year ago in Hammer And All The Nails, wherein I observed and groused that Carney’s husband Harry had only one tool in his box: cutting prices. The title refers to the old saying, when your only tool is a hammer, eventually every problem looks like a nail.

Sadly, things have only gotten worse. The most precipitous decline in check average came about when Harry collected all the ‘bar plate’ specials (he used to drum up business by offering cut rate entrees for bar customers only – for instance, a smaller filet mignon, with mashed potatoes, and a salad, all on one plate for about half the price of the regular, larger filet) and put them on a special menu supplement – now to be available also in the dining room. Gone were the inserts of the ’specials’ and fresh fish that went inside the regular menus. Now there was a separate open-face ’specials’ menu, featuring about eight cheap entrees, and the fresh fish.

We all know waiters don’t like to sell cheap stuff. We don’t make as much money because we’re tipped on a percentage of the check. That’s why coupons, happy hours, and early bird specials are roundly despised by waiters. Yes, we recognize the need to keep customer traffic healthy. Yes, we understand that these lower-echelon diners will still be paying full price for other elements of their meals (booze, appetizers, whatever). And yes, we know that getting new guests to try the restaurant is a good thing that might yield repeat business down the road.

But damn it, I still have a problem with it.

First, let me grouse about the new ’specials’ menu at Carney’s. First, it’s an attention-hog. It’s like a sleazy girl with an okay body wearing a really short, tight dress. Even if she’s not your type, you’re not in the market, or you’re even a gay man, you will take notice and stare. Well, this menu is open faced, as I said. It is staring at the guest every single second. Whereas the ‘real’ menu is two pages book-style. It’s dynamite, loaded with things like Australian lobster tails, double cut rack of New Zealand lamb, New York pepper steak. But it’s closed. I can’t tell you how often diners don’t even open the regular menu. The ’specials’ menu is staring them in the face. The prices are 50-60% of the regular menu. Portions are smaller, but it includes a salad – usually a $6 add-on in the ‘real’ menu.

So, yes, I can hardly blame people for ordering from this special menu. But it does get worse. Everything on the specials menu is a cannibalization of impressive and superior entrees on the regular menu. The specials are basically half orders. The lamb? Just a single rack and already sliced into chops: half price. Pork loins? Sliced pieces from the same amazing thick-cut pork chop: 2/3 the size, half the price. And everything, incidentally, is prepared the same way as the regular menu.

The other day, Carney, herself, pointed to the ’specials’ menu and said to me, ‘You know, this is what’s saving us. This has become 70% of our overall entrée sales.’

Great. Just like when Coca-Cola’s marketing folk introduces five new flavors/permutations of Coke, and then brag about how the new products have become 20% of gross sales.

Well guess what? The pie hasn’t gotten bigger. It’s just been divided differently. And it’s your same pie, you idiots. And further, what you’ve ‘added’ to the mix are actually increased sales of the lowest priced and least profitable items.

Don’t know if you’re keeping track through the blog, but Carney’s does not advertise.

That said, I want to add this: I can’t tell you how many times regular, well-to-do Carney’s guests will sit down – prepared to order their Carney’s Corner favorites – and see this new ’specials’ menu and opt for a small filet instead of their usual 10 oz. baseball cut.

These are people who don’t need to be ’sold’ by lower prices. They are already here. They are here because they already like the traditional Carney’s fare – portion, preparation, price, everything. They are ready to order off the ‘big kids’ menu. But instead our owners just cut their own income in half by billboarding the specials menu.

Harry’s take is along the lines of shearing the sheep many times rather than slaughtering it once. Sure, wealthy people can afford the higher prices. But wealthy people are not immune to fear; they are looking to cut back where they can just like us normal poor people. Harry reasons (though he hasn’t said this specifically to anyone) if these frightened rich people see they can eat at Carney’s for $85 instead of the usual $120, then they’ll come back more frequently – maybe keep up their historical frequency of visits.

And it’s a fact that’s hard to argue with that, but that doesn’t usually stop me. Rather than rehash the argument I made in another post, I’ll just state here that without making people aware of this strategy (read: promotion and advertising) it takes too long to effect. We could well be out of this downturn by the time people are widely cognizant that Carney’s is quite reasonable for a ‘fine dining’ restaurant. But more on that day later.

Rather, for Carney’s my take – stipulating the reality that there’s no advertising going on – would be to have smaller, inferior, and different items on the lower-priced ’specials’ menu. If people are motivated by price, then let them take a flier on some of these items. Why not offer a Choice top sirloin (we serve only prime steaks currently) that doesn’t duplicate the filet, new york, and rib eyes we do serve? It’s a cheaper cut in the first place, it’s also a lower grade. It would still be a good steak. Just not prime.

Meantime, this strategy preserves the primacy of the signature dishes, the dishes long-time guests return for again and again. And they pay the regular prices for them.

Let’s move on to Michael’s, my lunch job. A corporate place, Michael’s has behaved like all the others. First there was the New York and Crab package special. Used to be a summer-only thing to boost business in the slowest months. Lately? I haven’t been keeping track meticulously, but I think it’s been running without cessation for the last two years. It is steak and crab legs and a salad and side item and dessert for each person for $60 per person. Yes, each person gets all of those things. Not shared. It’s more food than you’d know what to do with, at Michael’s quantities. It’s about $100 of food at normal prices.

I won’t lie. As a lunch server, this was a great thing. It was a massive up-sell over our $15-27 lunch fare. For dinner, it didn’t work so well. Mainly, though, I want to show the sign posts on the way to Michael’s self-fulfilling prophecy.

Next, we were dealt the Prix Fixe Deluxe at lunch. A selection from five normal-sized lunch entrees inclusive of a side, choice of soup or salad, followed by a dessert: $22. These items ordered a la carte from the lunch menu would run in the neighborhood of $38.

God bless them, Michael’s at least will promote when necessary. After a moderate media blitz, the Prix Fixe Deluxer’s (let’s just call them Prix) flood into the restaurant, ID tags dangling from their belts, the men in ill-fitting suits, the women wearing hair and outfits that have that ‘I woke up this morning at my boyfriend’s apartment and didn’t have a change of clothes nor the time to do my hair again’ –look.

Business ticked up for about a month, at least volume did. Of course, we weren’t making any more money. Remember Restaurant Overstaffing? Don’t get me started there . . .

Similar to Carney rationalizing the ’specials menu,’ our Michael’s pre-shift meetings featured a lot of talk about how all these Prix are people who wouldn’t normally be coming into the restaurant. And it was easy to agree with that. It was depressing to imagine how many covers we would have had some days without the Prix.

But which came first? The desire to go to Michael’s or the desire to get a good deal at Michael’s? In other words, what would have happened if the moderate media blitz instead promoted the fantastic lunch menu and high quality product and service? I kind of think we would have gotten a similar uptick in volume, and from our core-type guests: people with money.

Both my restaurants have created self-fulfilling prophecies by cutting prices then sitting back and noticing, ‘Wow! This program is really popular for us! It’s a good thing we did this, because it’s only thing people are buying!’

Well of course! And I think a $15,000 Mercedes-Benz sedan and a $75 Louis Vuitton hand bag and See’s Candies for $2.99 a pound would also be popular with their respective clientele. They’d find that quickly those items became the majority of their sales.

Congratulations! You’ve just destroyed your brand.

Which is my final point. Now that this new order has been achieved – Carney’s and Michael’s are successfully selling to more guests by lowering the prices and their profits, while still putting out the same quality – how do you re-convert your core guests once the economy turns around? How do you suddenly (or even gradually) take away these deals your guests have come to expect from, and even to identify with your restaurant? How (just one more rhetorical question, I promise) do you get them to feel good about paying $50 for a steak when they used to pay $30 and be perfectly happy?

The restaurant industry is in tread-water, stay-afloat mode right now. We’re all just trying to get through this till the seas calm down again. Unfortunately, what’s happening to many of the misguided and/or desperate places is they are making the wrong decisions and in the process disfiguring themselves. When they emerge from the economic storm, they will be unrecognizable to those wealthy whales [I know this metaphor has gotten out of hand, but just live with it, okay?] who are ready again to buy $100 lobsters and $200 bottles of wine. Meanwhile, their new ‘regulars’ will recoil when suddenly the ‘little’ menu is no longer available.

It takes some restaurants (Carney’s Corner) years to build up to a reputation of ‘high quality and expensive, but worth it’; and it takes others (Michael’s, who started out that way) years to entrench themselves in that position, able to fend off challengers because all those ‘qualities’ remain constant.

Now that I’m finished mangling my Stormy Seas, Bad Weather metaphor, let me finish with a new one. My restaurants will be like that unbelievable girl you somehow dated one time in high school. Then she appears at the 10 year reunion after too many years of clubbing, bad boys, cigarettes and cocaine. She doesn’t sound the same. She doesn’t look the same. She doesn’t have the same mojo. And even though you know you have a shot at her now, you’re really just not interested.

Being both a marketing student at university and an avid fan of the Gruen Transfer, I was perplexed when Kraft decided to name their new Vegemite spread thing “iSnack2.0″. It seemed to be an extremely ill-informed and just lazy attempt at labelling a product- to basically ride on the coattails of the ubiquitous nature of all things “i(insert product here)” related. However, it is now evident that this was all just a step in their master plan. For despite what the spokespeople say, this WAS a publicity stunt. How do I know this? Because of New Coke.

In the mid 80’s, Coke was fighting a losing battle with Pepsi for the no. 1 position in the unbelievably lucrative softdrink market. Through a series of blind taste tests (where the participant either wears a blindfold or drinks from identical, unmarked cups) they determined that a majority of respondents preferred the sweet flavour of Pepsi over Coke. To combat this, the company decided to create a new version of Coke, one much more similar in taste to Pepsi. As it fared much better in testing, they decided to go all out in marketing the product, and replaced all existing old stock with the new one. It was initially a massive success, but much like Hulk with Eric Bana, negative word-of-mouth spread about it and revenue plummeted.

But wait! Just as public dissatisfaction was at an all-time high, Coca-Cola bravely announced the return of “Classic Coke”. It was a triumphant return, with sales immediately placing firmly as the no. 1 softdrink in the marketplace. For people remembered what it was they liked about the original Coke, and hence bought it in droves.

How is the iSnack situation similar? Well, the almost universal cold reception of the name must have surely been anticipated by the marketing management, just like the backlash against New Coke would have been. For this reason, I believe both to be just large, expensive stunts; stunts that I marvel at. For as the saying goes, any publicity is good publicity.

Now onto a random tangent.

I am a lover of sports movies. For me (and numerous friends), Remember the Titans is a perfect example of what a sports movie can be- a true story about an underdog, excellent sporting scenes, and Denzel Washington in his glorious prime. However, I have a bone to pick, pardon the pun, with the creators of the Air Bud franchise. Let’s go through the five movies that have been made revolving around the famous golden retriever:

1. Air Bud- The original, in which it is discovered Buddy has an uncanny ability to play basketball, and leads his owner’s school basketball team to a championship victory.
2. Air Bud: Golden Receiver- Where it is discovered Buddy has an uncanny ability to play American football, and leads his owner’s school football team to a championship.
3. Air Bud: World Pup- Where it is discovered Buddy has an uncanny ability to play soccer, and leads his owner’s school soccer team to the state championship.
4. Air Bud: Seventh Innings Fetch- Where it is discovered Buddy has an uncanny ability to play baseball, though in this film he is deservedly called up to the Major League.
5. Air Bud: Spikes Back- Where it is discovered Buddy has an uncanny ability to play volleyball… do I really need to explain what happens?

Obviously this is just an example of terribly repetitive and lazy scriptwriting, but even so, what the hell! I could maybe comprehend a dog being a great footballer, given their exceptional acceleration and evasiveness, but basketball? We’re meant to believe that not only does he have the cognitive ability to grasp the fundamental objectives of basketball, but also the physical attributes needed to accomplish these? He stands 2 feet tall! And how would you expect him to grasp the concept of foot faults in volleyball, or slide tackles in soccer? HE’S A DOG!

Yeah. That’s all.

So Keisha, the sole remaining original member of the Sugababes was pushed out in a blaze of tweets.  The powers that be felt she no longer met the requirements to be in one of Britain’s premier girl groups… and replace her with Jade ‘Eurovision’ Ewen.

Watching the fiasco unfold made me realise that musicians are actually no more than brands; they act in the same way and employ age old business strategies.  The Sugababes are just a band using a brand extension strategy to try and prolong their product life cycle.

Music emotionally connects with you.  It touches places you never knew existed and retrieves lost memories.  Brands work in exactly the same way; be it Coca-Cola, Adidas or M&S we don’t just think of the product when their name is mentioned, we think of things associated with them – the stories, the times we have used them and our experiences.  Brands, like music, connect with you on a personal level.

Brands (and bands) go through life cycles (as the Sugababes have shown).  The time before the 1^st album is the development phase.  Then launch is the 1^st album, swiftly followed by the growth stage as record sales increase and the royalties start to trickle (or flow) in.  Then as the artist reaches maturity they invest in extension strategies to prolong their time at the top; new albums, new genres, new line-ups, collaborations.

What makes the Sugababes example so pertinent is the grotesque blatantness of it all.  Siobhan left to create Sugababes 2.0, followed by Mutya leaving to create Sugababes 3.0 (with Heidi and Amelle being brought in respectively).  The brand kept on changing while the product remained the more or less the same.  However the latest incarnation, Sugababes 4.0, booting out Keisha for Jade, is perhaps the most extreme action because brand ‘Sugababes’ is now more important than the people in the group (the ingredients).

With strong brands sometimes the ingredients are very important as Coke learnt upon the release of ‘New Coke.’  In 1985, Coca-Cola under increasing pressure from Pepsi released ‘New Coke,’ which used an entirely new recipe.  The result?  Catastrophic FAIL.  The response was so bad they had to apologise and re-launch the original flavour as ‘the real thing.’  Will the same happen to the Sugababes with a whole new line-up as they try to stave off competition from The Pussycat Dolls, Electric Red and other sexy, sassy US R&B girl groups?

The answer no one knows for sure, all we do know is that the Sugababe brand will live on unless the latest re-brand goes the way of New Coke.  One major problem however, unlike Coca-Cola, it will be extremely difficult for the Sugababes to return to the ‘real thing.’

Another thing brands have a tendency to do is race after the most popular thing of the moment which may be the reason for brining in Jade because she is ‘friends’ with the little one from JLS.  Jade, be careful because if JLS lose their halo and you don’t develop yourself beyond My Man you will be following Keisha out the door and Sugababes 5.0 created…now who remembers Tab Clear!

Soulside Funk

I check my watch. It’s closer to midnight than I had suspected, but still not close enough. Forks are scraping plates and mugs are steaming as I peel my back off of the red vinyl. A shriveled woman is lamenting to her equally-shriveled companion.

“Not even on my birthday!” she testifies. “Christmas and Mother’s Day – that’s all I deserve, I suppose. Have mercy.”

I sip from my cup, and it bubbles louder than I had anticipated. I look around, but nobody’s noticed. I take a louder sip to test the limits.

A teenaged couple are avoiding eye contact with each other. He’s mopping his plate with a dry piece of wheat toast, and she’s dabbing the corners of her mouth with a folded napkin.

He clears his throat to loosen some phlegm, and she gets up to go to the bathroom. A chubby waitress saunters over, lifting her hips way too high on both sides – so much for subtleties – and sets the check down lightly. She turns around, and I have to take another sip of my coffee to hide my surprise. Her mustache is bold. Thick. A blonde caterpillar, cozy on her philtrum. My eyes dart down to the checkered pattern in front of me.

“1985,” I hear. “Sugar prices are climbing, people in suits are panicking. Coca-Cola is screwed. Pepsi’s been gaining on them since the late 70’s, there’s no way they can afford to switch to a cheaper sweetener now.” His friend is chewing. Nodding, but mostly chewing.

“Unless,” he bellows,  “they can divert everyone’s attention to another product entirely.” He pauses dramatically…

“New Coke. It’s like drinking from a rusty spittoon. No corporation in its right MIND would take such a successful product off the market, and replace it with a completely different formula. People cry. Angry letters are written. Phone calls are made. 77 days later, when Coke re-introduces its “classic” formula, people are so busy celebrating, that they have no idea what’s been added to their drinks; High. Fructose. Corn syrup.”

He leans back in his seat, smiling, puffed up with self-appreciation. I check my watch. It’s closer to midnight than I had suspected, but still not close enough. I lift my mug to take a drink, and realize it’s empty. I look for Tom Selleck the Waitress, but she’s busy eyeballing the kid, whose girlfriend has returned and still isn’t saying a word.

“Victor knows that Julia and Michael have been seeing each other,” says the pruny lady. For a second, I think she’s talking about real people.

“So he locks him up in a bomb shelter he built in his basement, and makes him watch on a television screen while he makes love to her.”

The waitress refills my drink, but doesn’t bother to smile at me. Even if she had, I wonder to myself, would I be able to see it behind her crumb catcher? I smile back anyway, and she strolls off, popping her hips like her pelvis is dislocated.

The teenaged couple are at the counter now, and he’s got his wallet out to pay the bill. She’s not giving him the ‘You’re-paying-my-bill-so-now-I’m-indebted-to-you’ vibe! I silently cheer for her in my head. Move closer to him. Give him the Grateful eyes. Something!

He pockets the change, and they exit together, more than two feet between them. I release a sigh of defeat. I check my watch. It’s closer to midnight than I had suspected, but still not close enough.

I suspect everyone remembers the cautionary tale of New Coke.  The Coca-Cola company decided in the mid-80s that they were going to “improve” one of the greatest brands on earth.  The company had been selling bottles of sugar water for nearly 100 years with phenomenal success, but for reasons unknown, they decided to tinker with the classic formula, that had been guarded in the vault like it was a national secret.  Coke’s marketing team hit the gas, and for months geared the nation up for the big launch.  Millions and millions of dollars were spent on promotions to make sure New Coke launched as huge success.  Then launch day arrived, and as you might have guessed, nearly everyone under the sun bought one.  I mean, who wouldn’t?  Huge success!  Everyone is now a New Coke drinker!

Now, fast forward one day.  The good news for the Coca-Cola company was that all of those promotional dollars paid off; New Coke flew off the shelves.  Millions of cases of New Coke sold equal millions of dollars of profits for the mother ship.  The bad news for the Coca-Cola Company was that one day later there were no longer any New Coke drinkers.  Why?  It sucked.  It was a terrible product that had everyone salivating when they heard about it; Coca-Cola was going to actually improve the greatest drink on earth.  Once they experienced it, though, New Coke was a bust.  Was it a big, dumb bureaucracy making a stupid decision?  Was it a product that was clearly rushed to market?  Did the marketers need to be air-lifted to safety because they had no Plan B?  Yes, yes, and yes.  

And this is where ObamaCare comes in.  What if some pollster came up to you, and asked if you thought our health care system needed to be fixed, what would you say?  Almost assuredly, you would say yes, but hopefully the marketer would notice that each and every person had a different solution, and second, by saying yes to a pollster, no one would have believed that meant that they were giving the administration carte blanche to fix it any way they saw fit.

More to the point, if a pollster came up and asked you if you thought the health care system in this country needs to be fixed, and when you said yes, he mentioned that by doing so, it would bankrupt the country, would you still be in agreement?  Of course not.  This is where we are now with ObamaCare.  First, President Obama told the country that he was going to fix the health care system as one of the first things he was going to do.  As usual with him, that simply meant snapping his fingers, and like magic, the system would fix itself.  In the early spring he held the much ballyhooed “Health Care Summit” at the White House, a two day confab with members of Congress and “stakeholders.”  At that summit BHO appeared on high in a robe with two tablets (and his fake Lincoln beard on to complete the look), and decreed that health care was solved because he was giving Congress a “$600 billion down payment” to solve it.  I’ve written about this before, but you would do no worse handing $600 billion to PacMan Jones, Nelly, and all the other rapper/athlete types who frequent gentlemen’s clubs in Vegas, dropping dollar bills like a deluge from the heavens, than handing a blank check that large to Congress.

So, after he took $700 billion in stimulus money, and dropped it to the bottom of the ocean, handed control of the auto companies to the unions, and took a couple of international trips to put U.S. national interests behind his own personal popularity, BHO decided to get serious about health care.  By getting serious, I mean he demanded that Congress pass a health care reform bill by the August recess, and by “a health care reform bill,” I mean that he meant pass anything that he could call “health care reform.”

The point is, first, he didn’t really care about meaningful reform of health care, all he cared about was being able to campaign in 2012 on passing “health care reform.”  Call me crazy, but that constitutes leadership in the same way that a Super Bowl coach telling his team, “I don’t care how we do it boys, all I care about is scoring more points than the other guys today,” with no set plays or game plan at all.  Secondly, he is talking about completely overhauling one-sixth of the U.S. economy.  If I were a C.E.O. about to revamp the most important division in my conglomerate, I seriously doubt I would demand the final plan from a bunch of B-Team middle managers in 6 weeks.  That seems dumb and short sighted.  Oh, but wait, all of his advisers and minions say that the great thing about BHO is that he’s not interested in what happens next week, or next year, he cares about the long term…the big picture.

Anyway, just as he is threatening to personally waterboard every member of the Senate unless they pass something, the bill came in…and the Congressional Budget Office (non-partisan, no axe to grind) said that BHO’s plan would add to the deficit to the tune of about a TRILLION dollars over the next decade.  Whoops!  Then the health care think tanks mentioned the inconvenient fact that even after government run  health care adds a TRILLION dollars to the deficit, one-third of all those uninsured would, stick with me here, still be uninsured.  Uh-oh…Then the Democrats trotted out their usual “soak the rich” hobby horse, and suggested an income tax “surcharge” on certain incomes to pay for it.   This, of course, would be akin to putting a band-aid over Marie Antoinette’s neck after the guillotine had already chopped her head off.  Starting to get the picture?

OK, so where does this leave us?  The Coca-Cola marketers ask a bunch of their customers what they would think if their favorite drink could be made even better.  Then they put together a shoddy, ill conceived product, and marketed the snot out of it.  The result was an initial burst of excitement followed by the realization that the product was a complete bomb.  Followed finally by excuses and finger pointing because no one had a back up plan, and no one wanted to take credit for such a stupid idea in the first place.  Are you still with me?  Just substitute the White House and BHO for the Coca-Cola marketers, his health care plan for New Coke, and the American public for, well, the American public.

Finally, and some things just never get old…Now that the public and Congress has woken up to the fact that ObamaCare is the New Coke of its generation, and the White House has no back up plan, what has Team Obama decided to do???  First, they invited the “Today” show in for an interview in the White House (to be aired right after the latest comments from Joe Jackson on how he’s going to get his hands on Jacko’s loot, and right before Al Roker’s profile of the Denver Fire Department saving Grandma’s puppy and kitten from the sewer…Unpresidential?  You tell me.), and then they scheduled BHO for yet another Press Conference to try to put the press lap dogs under his spell one more time.

Target just replaced its Target brand of core commodities with the Up & Up brand.  I’m a believer in the benefits of private label, but I don’t get this one.

Private label at retail can do so many things. It can allow a retailer to capture a higher margin than a “store brand.”  It can help a retailer sell in a category where its core brand may not have the cache the target wants to display (Target does this well with Merona).  It can create a competitive difference because your store is the only place to get the private label brand.

But to replace a store brand that is highly regarded in a category where that brand likely has positive meaning with a brand that has no meaning (and an odd-although-I’m-sure-they-have-research-that-says-its-great name) seems risky.  Maybe even foolish.

In its press release, Target suggests that this move helps them reintroduce 130 products that have been reformulated or enhanced of 800 they sell in this category.  Up & Up will “deliver low prices and great quality with an expanded product selection and a unique new design.”  Take away the unique new design and isn’t that what I expect of the Target brand?

Let’s assume I’m a Target shopper, and I have bought Target branded products for some time.  Now I go in the store and those products are gone, replaced by this unknown thing called Up & Up.  What is it?  Are the prices the same as the Target product (which is now gone, so I can’t compare)?  Is it the product that has performed well for me in the past (I don’t know because it’s an unknown brand)?  Up & Up?  Isn’t that a phrase that suggests something that is trying to overcome deception (as in “being on the up and up”)?  And, am I going to prefer Up & Up products in these categories anymore than I preferred the Target brand; if I didn’t buy private label to start with, I’m probably not going to buy this new, unknown private label?

So, now what does Target sell under the Target brand?  Anything?

This feels a bit like “new Coke” to me, when some people preferred Pepsi over Coke and the solution seemed to be to throw out Coke and introduce a new brand.  Throw out Target because… its baby wipes weren’t up to snuff?  Its paper plates weren’t quite good enough?

They folks in Minneapolis are smarter than me.  They must be; they’ve created successes I’ve only written about.  But this one has me stymied.  Looking forward to seeing how it plays out.

Not all it's cracked up to be.

OK, it’s been quite a while since I posted anything, so to mark my return, I’ve decided to tackle a tough topic, but one I dearly love.

Mountain Dew.

You can see this is going to be a bear.

Growing up near Atlanta, when it comes to soft drinks, I’ve always been a Coca-Cola guy.

Hands down.

Pepsi sucks.

In fact, I once won a bet by proving to a less-soft drink educated fellow than I that I could discern between Coke and Pepsi simply from the smell alone. But that’s for another time …

But for quite some time, if I’m drinking a mass-produced, over-sweetened, caffeine-loaded soft drink that’s not a Coke, odds are highly favorable that it’s Mountain Dew.

In fact, I’m enjoying some as I type this post.

Well, back in March, PepsiCo introduced “Throwback” versions of both Pepsi and Mountain Dew. I’ve no idea what the Pepsi version tastes like and I likely never will. But from the moment I became aware of this new Mountain Dew product, it was only a matter of when, not if, I would partake.

According to PepsiCo’s propaganda, the primary difference between the current version of Mountain Dew and the retro “Throwback,” besides the use of the old logo on the packaging, is the fact that retro version is made with real sugar instead of corn syrup.

Soft drink companies began moving to corn syrup in the 1980s, beginning with Coca-Cola’s marketing-ploy-disguised-as-PR-nightmare move from Coca-Cola to “New Coke” to Coca-Cola Classic, which is what we now know as Coke. For those too young to remember that fiasco, it’s all explained here. But the basic theme is that Coke used the ultimate cola shell game to move from sugar to the much cheaper corn syrup.

Now virtually all soft drinks are made with corn syrup, excluding some smaller independent brands and a few instances of bottling companies with grandfathered bottling agreements with the big companies that allow them to continue making their products with sugar.

If you’ve ever visited a Mast General Store in North Carolina or the Upstate of  South Carolina, you’ll find all of their glass-bottled drinks (excluding Coke) are bottled using real sugar instead of corn syrup.

Some people have speculated that our nation’s shift to corn syrup over sugar over the past 20-plus years is partially responsible for some common health problems (obesity, childhood diabetes, etc.)  I don’t think this has been proven, but it doesn’t sound entirely ridiculous to me.

Sorry, I’ve rambled. The point, besides a little background, is that these drinks like the ones at the Mast stores that are made with sugar DO taste different. Maybe even better. So I wanted to try the Mountain Dew.

So a couple of weeks ago, while on vacation in the mountains of Tennessee, I bought some Mountain Dew Throwback.

What a complete and utter disappointment. The difference between sugar and corn syrup is actually pretty easy to detect. The sugar has a different kind of sweet that’s hard to describe. I believe it’s sweeter. But it was obvious from the start that the Throwback edition of Dew was quite punchless. I noticed it, but thought  maybe it was me.

But eventually, I determined there was a legitimate weakness there, and I began to peruse the ingredients on the side of the can.

A-Ha! It was right there in green and white.

Most people never look at the ingredients on the side of their soft-drink cans. In fact, I usually wish I didn’t know what was in there. But I only had to get down to the third-most plentiful ingredient in the two versions of Mountain Dew to see what the problem was.

Aside from carbonated water and high fructose corn syrup, the next most plentiful ingredient in Mountain Dew is … orange juice. Most people don’t know that. After that is citric acid.

Imagine … a citrus soft drink with real citrus in it. That’s preposterous.

But if you look at the Throwback label, it goes from carbonated water and sugar (instead of corn syrup) straight to the citric acid.

No orange juice.

At all.

Zero.

A first, I had simply been disappointed that a version of one of my favorite beverages with real sugar instead of corn syrup was so crappy.

But now I wonder if this isn’t the beginning of  a New Coke-like marketing ploy, instead. Maybe Pepsi is trying to play a shell game and eliminate expensive orange juice from Dew’s formula without the average  customer knowing.

So I guess I kinda had two points I wanted to establish …

1. Mountain Dew Throwback sucks. An indisputable fact.

2. When a major American corporation promotes a product that is supposed to give you something thatyou could only get in years gone by, it’s probably valid to ask what else they’re taking away from you while you aren’t looking.

By the way … Midnight Oil has given way to Joni Mitchell. Both respectable musically, but Joni’s easier on the eyes. But not too much.

Sometimes, change is necessary… and good. 

Imagine Greater what?

I don’t believe this is one of those times. 

I’ve read the press releases and it seems the reason for the change (besides having something to talk about, now that Battlestar Galactica is finis) is because the folks that own the network couldn’t trademark “Sci-Fi”. 

Okay… but what the hell good is a trademark of something that has no meaning at all? Phonetically? Sure, it rolls the same off the tongue. But when it comes to what the brand stands for, the term “Sci-Fi” said it all. 

I also read where there is a desire to become a little less geeky. Sorry, but SyFy without some inherent geekiness is the CW. 

I’m not a fanboy who will join the picket lines demanding the change never take place. In fact, I rarely loiter on this channel while surfing, unless they’re in the middle of one of their Twilight Zone marathons… sucker that I am for Burgess Meredith and coke-bottle glasses. But they do have a niche (BG, Stargate, the upcoming Caprica) that one would assume they’re putting into jeopardy by choosing a name so stupid it doesn’t even warrant a t-shirt. 

I’m reminded of New Coke.    

Career quenching.

Or the time I was lucky enough to work on the Nike account (but unlucky enough to be there during the “let’s replace ‘Just Do it’ with ‘I can”’ phase.

Sure, you can, but you really shouldn't.

Neither lasted long. But the solutions to those debacles was as easy as reverting back to those legendary three words and not restocking some shelves. This, I believe, will be much more embarrassing. 

I leave you with a video that has nothing to do with this topic, except for it’s title. 

History has a habit of repeating itself or at least it seems that way. 

On May 19, 2009, KKSF, a San Francisco-based radio station and its Texas owner Clear Channel announced a format change from from smooth jazz to classic rock.  The move although not unique is eerily reminiscent of The Coca-Cola Company’s New Coke strategy that proved to be a textbook marketing failure.

In 1985, The Coca-Cola Company replaced its flagship product with New Coke, a sweeter reformulation.   Three months after introducing New Coke, the company reintroduced its original product as “Classic Coke” and eventually New Coke (aka Coca-Cola II) faded into oblivion. 

Michael Erickson, KKSF’s program director said in a statement that the discontinuation of KKSF as a radio station was a result of “exhaustive market research” and “extensive market conditions.”  As a veteran marketer, I’m a big fan of market research; however, The Coca-Cola Company also had lots of data backing up its move from Coke to New Coke.  Apparently, the research failed to accurately represent what customers actually wanted.

KKSF launched in 1987 and like Coca-Cola established a unique brand in its market.  Through a combination of savvy programming, free concerts featuring emerging artists, annual releases of “KKSF Samplers” and other activities, the station developed a large following of loyalists and addicts who, like some original Coke fans, were outraged by the switch.

Like The Coca-Cola Company, KKSF has taken a unique brand that had been sought out by consumers and replaced it with an unremarkable product that has lots of competition.  In Coke’s case, it was so-so cola which is otherwise available from countless brand names and private labels.  In KKSF’s case it was classic rock, a genre that is and has been aptly covered by several other radio stations in the area, the most notable of which is KFOX. 

KKSF had no real local competition so the Bay Area now completely lacks a smooth jazz station.  Common marketing knowledge suggests it is better to enter a market with a unique product and in the absence of competition than to enter a crowded market late with an undifferentiated product. 

Financially speaking, the economy has not been kind to traditional media so no doubt ad dollars and sponsorships are down.  I am not privy to KKSF’s financial history; however, the station made several mistakes along the way that likely did not help its current situation.

The first problem had to do with programming.  What differentiated the station – a collection of great artists and works – became stale when the same group of artists and their standards continued to receive the most play year after year after year. 

The second problem was advertising.  Smooth jazz music and loud in-your-face commercial advertisements make bad bedfellows. 

The third problem had to do with samplers, specifically song and artist duplication.  Although most of the samplers are highly rated, several artists appear on more than one sampler which is great if you love the artist and not so great if you don’t.  The same is true for songs.  Baby G performed by Kenny G appears on Samplers 10 and 17.  Holding Back the Years appears on Samplers  5, 11, and 17 performed twice by Simply Red and once by Craig Chaquico.  Even though the interpretations may differ they are still the same songs.

Despite these detractors, the station maintained a loyal listener base inside and outside its geography, many of whom were shocked, disappointed, and/or outraged by the recent news.  KKSF is encouraging listeners to stream “Smooth Jazz Network” feeds but that does little to maintain the brand.

Although The Coca-Cola Company successfully resurrected Coke, KKSF is likely dead.  New Coke was still a cola, albeit a reformulation.  “The Band” which is replacing KKSF features an entirely different genre.  Further, the Coca-Cola Company had the financial resources to launch New Coke and re-launch Coke.  As KKSF was falling short of profitability expectations and Clear Channel has invested heavily in its replacement, it is economically unlikely if not economically unfeasible to re-launch KKSF.

Perhaps smooth jazz just isn’t a sustainable genre.  In 2001, KTEE in the Monterey area switched from smooth jazz to country.  Now the home of the Monterey Jazz Festival is without a smooth jazz station.  Perhaps Bay Area listeners will be less forgiving although they are only part of the equation.  Radio stations need a solid base of advertisers and sponsors to operate.

I imagine that several factors played into the demise of KKSF including shrinking ad dollars, market changes, and less-than-stellar management decisions.  Also, Clear Channel is a public company so there are other considerations.

Whether the void is attractive enough for another party to pursue remains a question.  At least for loyal listeners, KKSF would be a tough act to follow.

Coca-Cola has chosen Washington, DC, to make a statement about its commitment to sustainability and energy efficiency. At each step in the manufacturing, distribution and sales processes in the Capital, Coca-Cola has added innovations …[More..]


Coke has a new ad that declares that only two people know Coke

Happy birthday to Atlanta’s hometown icon, Coca-Cola!

The company that brought us Diet Crack(er, Coke) turns 123 years old today. Remember, this is also the enterprise that introduced us to the 1985 colossal debacle known as New Coke.

See? Anyone can bounce back!

My vitriol of the new Tropicana redesign is no secret. And that I had a lot of company in hating the new look was no suprise. What was completely shocking was how Tropicana actually listened, and clawed back the old packaging, which I’m sure was no small expense in both money and corporate pride. A big corporation actually listened to its consumers! Hurrah?

No, actually. Initial reaction from corporate was the usual wailers-will-get-over-it line. Not a suprise, and I don’t blame them. Redesign was done for a reason, freshening a brand is vitally important, or else you end up like Oldsmobile. People will complain, and people will get over it, it’s the nature of the beast. No big deal.

What corporate does listen to, however, is sales. And I wasn’t joking when I said I couldn’t find Tropicana anymore at the grocery store, even as row after row of the stuff was staring me in the face. Tropicana sales plunged 20% since the redesign. Considering that as a category, OJ sales remained steady despite the recession; and considering that competitor’s sales registered gains, the redesign qualifies as Epic Fail.

If I was a Tropicana executive, as soon as that number came in, I too would have called the plant and had them literally stop the presses. They couldn’t kick the redesign to the curb fast enough, and I don’t blame them. 20% sales drop qualifies as a collapse, which especially hard if you’re the category leader. That is 1 in 5 sales you have just lost. Reading some of the comments in other blog posts, there’s speculation it’s actually worse. Theory goes that the sales guys pushed through extra large orders of the old design to stave off the onset of the new design. Supposing the theory is right (BIG if) thatwould mean something like 1 in 4 people decided to walk away from the new Tropicana.

Epic Fail.

Rob Walker’s Buying In is one of the best books on marketing ever. In this article (Coke conspiracy), Rob talks about one of the most fascinating marketing failures ever. Conspiracies abound, but the bottom line is that Coke was trying to ‘give the customer what they want’ and it blew up in their faces.
Get to know your customers. Let them get to know you. Earn their trust in your ability. Then give them what you know is best, not what you think will make them happy.

Word: milieu [mil-yoo] n. surroundings, esp. of a social or cultural nature: a snobbish milieu

Birthday: William Shakespeare (1564), James Buchanan (1791), Cow Cow Davenport (1894), Lester B. Pearson (1897), Shirley Temple (1928), Roy Orbison (1936), Lee Majors (1939), Sandra Dee (1942), Hervé Villechaize (1943), Joyce DeWitt (1949), Michael Moore (1954), Jan Hooks (1957), Valerie Bertinelli (1960), George Lopez (1961), Timothy McVeigh (1968), John Cena (1977), Kal Penn (1977), Jaime King (1979)

Occurence: 1985 – In the most unpopular move in soft drink history, The Coca-Cola Company replaces Coca-Cola Classic with New Coke. Three months later, the original is back in stores.

Standpoint: It’s time for this week’s edition of Annoying Sayings & Misused Words. Let’s get to it.

“figuratively” vs. “literally” – Literally, everyone is abusing the word “literally.” (Sorry. Couldn’t resist.) But it’s almost true, I guess. If you’re like me in that you (a) have normal hearing and (b) understand the English language, then you know what I’m talking about. For example, a statement like, “The party was so packed. There were literally 2,000 people in that apartment.” Sure, I understand that there were a lot of people at the party. But unless the host lives in one of the most impressive apartments in the history of indoor dwellings, then I think the numbers are a bit off. To put it lightly. Rather, the word “figuratively” should’ve replaced “literally.” “Figuratively” means “metaphorical” or “not literal.” “Literally” means “in a literal manner” or “word for word.” So all these people saying things like, “Jesus, it’s literally been raining for 20 straight days,” or, “You should’ve seen the dog park. There were literally like 700 dogs down there today,” need to simply substitute the word “figuratively” for “literally.” The problem here? It won’t happen. “Figuratively” just doesn’t roll out of the mouth the same way “literally” does. It doesn’t convey the same feeling or deliver the same kind of impact. So, sorry, folks, I think we’re stuck with this one. Literally.

“My Bad” – Once, an employee of mine showed up for work about two hours late on a very important day. First thing he said to me? “Sorry, Josh, my bad.” I just about shot through the roof. “My bad” has become one of those things that people say in lieu of an apology. I think it started with pro athletes who say it frequently after a missed pass or a dropped ball. But showing up two hours late for work? I needed a little more than that because I was already completely certain it was ”his bad.” I wasn’t sitting around wondering if the guy was late because of something I might’ve done. I knew that the blame rested squarely on that clown’s shoulders. So, do me a favor. Unless we’re playing flag football and you miss me wide open by a mile in the end zone, don’t bring out ”my bad.”

“Same Difference” – As with “My Bad,” this falls into the category of “lazy sayings.” One article I read qualified it as a “verbal shrug.” I think that about sums it up – it’s the equivalent of “whatever” nowadays. “Same difference” isn’t so much misused as it’s overused. It really should be ”same thing, no difference,” but that’s not how most mean it. Mainly, it’s used in the same way as, “I’m just saying.” It’s just a conversational device for one to end an argument in which they are wrong without having to admit it.

Tune: Last summer, I listened to “Sultan” by What Made Milawaukee Famous about 4 times a day. I like the use of horns. Also, pretty great name for a band.

Gallimaufry: I was working and didn’t get a chance to watch it, but according to everyone who did, this week’s disco episode of “American Idol” was pretty awful. Joymarie described it as “a trainwreck”…Tonight, the Flyers face elimination in their first-round playoff series with the Pittsburgh Penguins. If the Flyers can’t pull it out, losing to a team with as little heart as the Penguins will be tough enough. But what might be worse is losing to a team with some of the most pathetic fans in sports history. Disgraceful. And we in Philly get a bad name as fans…For the record, I think Perez Hilton is annoying and probably secretly loves all the celebrities he shreds on a daily basis. But, after some deliberation, I think what he did to Carrie Prejean during the Miss USA competition was a pretty strong and calculated move.

Incoming: Tomorrow – 3 Things To Do In Philly When You’re Dead and 5 Things You Should Say To Your Waiter If You Want Him To Dislike You.

by Eli Altman

Peter Arnell is certainly an interesting character. From the 1600 pairs of eyeglasses, to the finely tailored Tom Ford suits, to the alleged ankle holster and the 20 oranges a day that turn his hands yellow– he’s an eccentric brand on his own. His work isn’t too bad either. He boasts an impressive portfolio of brands ranging from Samsung to Home Depot.

Newsweek’s article “Mad Man” gives us an interesting view on the work and life of Peter Arnell. After following Arnell from one ritzy Manhattan establishment to the other, writer Daniel Lyons shifts his focus to the thorn in Arnell’s side: the Tropicana rebrand. When the new packaging hit stores in January, the reaction couldn’t have been worse. The design was hated so much that it was hard to believe the American public could care so much about what’s printed on an orange juice carton—it was pulled after a month (two months shorter than “New Coke” lasted in 1985).

It’s true, the design was bad. The colors looked artificial and there was no care or tact in connecting the old iconic design with the new system. The type and photography made the juice aisle, which Tropicana dominates, look like 1994.

While everyone seems pretty convinced that this project failed (including Tropicana), the important question is: what happened here? Did Arnell dive too deep into research to see the big picture? Was he allowed to get too close to a household icon without adult supervision? Did his diet of cucumber and carrots with mustard mess up his brain chemistry? Everyone agrees that Arnell is an elite salesman… maybe that blurred Tropicana’s view of their customer base. While it’s pretty unanimous that the design doesn’t work, everyone has their own theories as to how and why.

According to Lyons, “Arnell claims it doesn’t bother him. But when you spend some time around him, you quickly realize that (a) he’s extremely insecure, (b) he knows this mess has damaged him and (c) he wants to move past this as quickly as possible.”

I don’t blame him. It sucks when people don’t like your work. It wasn’t fun in design school and it isn’t fun now. But while we don’t have control over how people perceive our work, we do have control over how we learn from it and how we get past it. Clearly Arnell has had a terrific run that makes even ‘successful’ designers envious. However, this doesn’t mean he’s above executing one project poorly. It happens to the best of us big guy.

If you’re not capable of taking a shot to your ego and admitting when you’ve messed up, the wound will never heal. People will just keep poking and prodding because they can see it gets to you. Swallowing your pride, and being ok with the fact that you don’t have the perfect answer every time just means you’re human. People won’t stop hiring you for that—they’ll stop hiring you because they fear your ego has grown big enough to get in the way of your ability to produce great work. And hey, if Arnell can’t see that, maybe this shot to his ego is exactly what he needs.

"...this is an orange"

I just discovered a great site for slicing and dicing Facebook page rankings.  Check it out at Facebook Page Statistics.  It’s sub-site of AllFacebook The Unofficial Facebook Resource.

You can choose between rankings by number of fans, daily growth rate and weekly growth rate.  Those rankings are available for all pages or within 61 sub-categories — from  actors, bands and consumer products to TV shows, visual artists and writers.

Top three sites by fans overall?  Barack Obama, Coca-Cola and Nutella.

Now, I know Nutella is very popular in Germany and across Europe.  But I wouldn’t have expected it to be the third most popular Facebook page on the planet.  Would you?  (Do you even know what Nutella is?)  It has 3.2 million fans.

Some of the data seems a bit off.  Skittles appears twice, ranked number 4 and 6 under consumer products.  And the Bible also appears under consumer products.  Well, I guess it is one, strictly speaking.  But maybe the “Non-Profit” category might have been more appropriate.  Or perhaps “Other Public Figure.”  After all, it is the word of God.

People’s propensity to actually become a fan on a brand’s Facebook page seems like a nice, if somewhat imperfect, measure of their love of  the brand.  Imperfect, because variables of content and entertainment value will influence the number of fans on the page.  And not all brand lovers are on Facebook — yet.

But the fact that Coke is the number one ranked page for consumer goods would support a correlation to Facebook fans and love.  (Remember the revolt of Coca-Cola enthusiasts against New Coke back in the 80’s?  This is brand that is loved, despite its age and the proliferation of competitive offerings in the soft drink category.)  Nutella’s high ranking would confirm that too.  I know people who would take to the streets if “their” Nutella were ever taken off the market or even changed in the slightest way.  At Saatchi & Saatchi, my employer, we call brands like these Lovemarks.  We all have our personal Lovemarks.  Brands to which we are loyal beyond reason.

There are many ways to understand if a brand has moved beyond respect into the lofty realm of love.  The number of fans it has on Facebook is a new one worth keeping an eye on.