The stakes can get very high:

The company, Purdue Pharma, agreed to pay $600 million in fines and other payments to resolve the criminal charge of “misbranding” the product

Caveat brandor!

A couple months back, we had an informal office gathering. Everyone was asked to bring some nosh or libation. Two doors down from our Alexandria office, Planet Wine & Gourmet keeps an excellent selection of American microbrews; some upscale suds would be my contribution.

Surveying the cooler, a distinctive six-pack of Acme California Pale Ale caught my eye. In vintage poster-art style, it featured a red-haired female acrobat flying through the air, a glass of beer in hand.

It was worth the gamble to see if the beer lived up to the energetic image.

Long story short: The beer was so good (I hid one of the sixers in the back of the fridge for myself) that I had to email the company the next day and let them know how impressed I was.

Days later, I received an email from Tom Allen, executive VP of North Coast Brewing. Tom thanked me for my compliment and asked if he could use a quote from my email on the company website. Of course I said yes, and by way of thanks, I received a great Acme “care package” just this morning.

What’s worth learning? It’s incredibly easy for consumers to provide feedback, but it’s just as easy for companies to acknowledge that feedback, and even involve consumers in their marketing efforts. Sure, customer testimonials have been around forever, but that’s traditionally been the realm of mega-brands. Now, artisan brands are getting into the act, and they only have loyalty to look forward to.

Cheers, Tom. Guess what’s in the cooler this weekend.

Thanks to its beefy advertising campaign (whose reach made it nearly impossible to avoid), I recently checked out MINI Cooper’s Hammer & Coop advertainment effort.

Featuring a series of extremely well-produced ($$$) Starsky & Hutch-meets-Knight Rider-style webisodes (supported by a bunch of fun features like its Action Name Generator), MINI’s Hammer & Coop site is jam-packed with kitchy 70s retro fun.

The webisodes are Will Farrel-movie-style stupid. They objectify women. They make MINI drivers look like morons. The positioning is risky. The images are somewhat racy.

But they made me—a member of MINI’s professional, 30-something, hipster Gen-X target audience—laugh out loud. More than once. I liked it so much that I even sent the link to some friends. And most importantly, they reinforced my perception that MINIs are FUN.

Which is exactly what MINI’s brand has always stood for.

Last month’s Fast Company featured a piece promoting the idea that “if you want people to like you, first decide who needs to hate you.”

“Most marketers feel that if they make a bold statement, they risk not just alienating customers—but also their boss, and their boss’s boss,” says Charles Rosen, founding partner of Amalgamated ad agency. “That fear takes the edge off of all communications.”

So in order to create a powerful brand identity—the kind with messaging that delivers more than a flaccid “hey”—a brand must be willing to define who ISN’T in its audience. This level of targeting enables a brand to take more risks so that it can actually stand out and reach the right audience.

My dad and his friends probably wouldn’t laugh at or even like Hammer & Coop.

But my dad also wouldn’t be remotely interested in buying a tiny non-luxury car. Which is EXACTLY why Hammer & Coop is so surprisingly smart.

Word on the street is that Subway restaurants are moving into the pizza market. While some ponder the potential threat to pie shops like Domino’s, I’m thinking, What about your brand consistency, Subway? Aren’t you the “Eat Fresh” folks? Haven’t you been riding high on the success story of Jared Fogel, who lost plenty of pounds thanks to his sensible Subway diet?

I don’t care if the pizzas are made in the store and topped before my eyes. It’s still oiled dough with cheese on top. No way Jared would have succeeded if he was crushing a pizza a day.

No fast-food establishment so saturates the country with such a healthy brand. Mom & Pops aside, if you’re seeking a moderately calorie-controlled cold-cut sandwich, you go to Subway. If you want a burger, you could end up at numerous spots. Same with pizza.

Brand performance is about finding your niche, digging in, and gaining ownership. Thanks in no small way to Jared’s well-known weight loss, Subway’s had mad success. Why, I’m wondering, would it risk devaluing its hard-won identity by expanding services beyond fresh sandwiches?

Ahhhhh…greed.

Stumbled on this super-cool site earlier this morning, a great online library of the world’s well-known brands.

Sifting through the sea of logos, I’m trying to figure out what unites them. What branded these brands into our collective consciousness? Sure, they all met a particular need at a specific time…for starters. But what maintained the momentum? Perhaps the answer is different for each one, but could the common thread be that consistent, intelligent messaging leads to conspicuous market (and ultimately cultural) presence?

Diverse industries aside, each one of these brands had to face a moment of emerging popularity, when decision makers realized it could become an identity that carried weight well beyond the product or service with which it was originally associated. Companies that take control of that insight are appropriately enshrined.

Of course, I do have a favorite.

A few weeks ago, I came across this piece in The Washington Post:

. . .when the Yale law student interviewed with 16 firms for a job this summer, she was concerned that she had only four call-backs. She was stunned when she had zero offers.Though it is difficult to prove a direct link, the woman thinks she is a victim of a new form of reputation-maligning: online postings with offensive content and personal attacks that can be stored forever and are easily accessible through a Google search.

Which got me thinking: When was the last time I Googled myself?

While self-Googling, a.k.a. “egosurfing,” was once shunned (or at least not admitted publicly) because of its seemingly narcissistic intentions, it’s quickly become key in managing one’s professional reputation. As stated by George Lichter, President and CEO of SEO-famed InfoSearch Media:

“. . .a simple Google search can bring up all sorts of information, both positive and negative. . . .People need to be in control of their ‘personal brand.’ A prospective employer or school admissions committee isn’t going to respond well to a blog page littered with party photos. According to a recent study by ExecuNet, seventy-seven percent of executive recruiters run background checks on candidates by using search engines.”

So, have you Googled yourself lately?

Just a few months ago Time named “You” the Person of 2006, based on the boom of social and professional networking sites like MySpace, LinkedIn, and Friendster, as well as the growth of personal blogs and websites. But this boom also increased the number of opportunities for “You” to come up in search engine results—which means that the first impression you give potential clients, employers, or industry peers may very well be crafted by the links that come up after your name has been entered in a Google search.

(more…)

Help me out. I’m trying to think of any promotion where a renowned brand actually allowed its identity to be changed into something just as well known, but (prior to that point) purely fictional.

Such is a tentative plan involving 7-Eleven and The Simpsons. Select convenience stores would be completely rebranded as Kwik-E-Marts—once found only in animated Springfield—as part of an upcoming feature film promo effort.

In addition to signage, the stores would also stock real-world versions of Kwik-E-Mart staples. The Slurpee, in short, would become the Squishee.

Wes and I hit the 7-Eleven on Mt. Vernon two or three times a day. If the deal goes through, I hope our store gets the Apu makeover. Hmmm…Krusty Burger.

Tackling a ribeye at a DC steakhouse the other evening, I couldn’t help catching a bit of conversation from the adjacent booth. A quick glance verified that it was a table of well-dressed business bigshots, expense-account daredevils who know how to sling a Gold Card, and probably have enough frequent flyer miles to make it to the moon and back.

Bigshot 1: Where’d they put you?

Bigshot 2: At the Hilton, but I moved to the Marriott.

Bigshot 1: You moved?

Bigshot 2: I’m tired of seeing that [disreputable female]. Everywhere I turn. Magazines. TV. Enough. That place won’t get another dime from me.

Bigshot 3: Got that right. I hear “Hilton” and now I think sleaze.

Bigshot 1: So how’s the Marriott?

Bigshot 2: Whatever. I’m not paying for it.

[Chorus of laughter and clinking cocktail glasses.]

Conrad’s spinning in his grave.

“Halfway Sara.”

As a kid, that’s what my dad would call me any time I claimed to complete a job that wasn’t really done—like when I claimed to have “finished” mowing the lawn even though I’d neglected the big patch of green behind the garage. While a decent effort, it didn’t really achieve the desired end goal—hence the “Halfway” label.

Lately, I’ve noticed a lot of “halfway branding” efforts, in which companies seem to invest the time and money creating sharp designs and taglines, but neglect to fully create the brand voice needed to truly complete their brand’s identity—to personify their brands.

And I’m not the only one who’s noticing—per this recent Brand Story post:

There are lots of examples of companies that consistently use identity design to reinforce their brands, but far fewer brands seem to give as much thought to the voice of their communications. MINI does it exceptionally well, across all mediums. The Economist and Apple too. Harley Davidson does a pretty good job (there are exceptions). Saturn used to have unique voice—before it was assimilated.

But what’s the brand voice of Marriott? Cascade? Pepsi? Dell? Citi? Buick? Is there anything unique about the way Kroger, Budget, Hershey’s, or Delta speak to their customers? None of these are bad, but none of them speak in a special way to their customers.

Think about it…what takes a consumer from simply liking a product to actually identifying with and fully embracing a brand? Seems to me it’s pretty much the same qualities that make someone fall in love and identify with certain people: appearance and personality—a brand’s design and voice.

Companies like MINI, Apple, and Harley Davidson have such über-loyal followings because they don’t just look cool, they consistently sound cool—fully personifying their brands as the cool kids in class that target audience members want to hang out with.

So it’s vital that all components in a branding effort incorporate the personality and convey the feel needed to truly create the desired brand perception.

What else do you think results in “halfway branding” efforts?

As if there weren’t enough things to distract today’s cell-phone-talking, video-watching, road-rage-shouting drivers, MINI Cooper recently launched an experimental marketing campaign that uses radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to send personalized billboard messages to MINI Cooper drivers. As described in this New York Times piece:

The boards, which usually carry typical advertising, are programmed to identify approaching MINI drivers through a coded signal from a radio chip embedded in their key fob. The messages are personal, based on questionnaires that owners filled out: “Mary, moving at the speed of justice,” if Mary is a lawyer, or “Mike, the special of the day is speed,” if Mike is a chef . . .

Per any true branding campaign, MINI’s billboard messages don’t overtly sell or promote anything, they just make the 1000+ MINI owners in New York, Chicago, Miami, and San Francisco who volunteered for the program look and feel like they’re part of some cool, elite club.

And c’mon, who wouldn’t want to stay in or become a member of such a club? (insert sound of MINIs driving off of new car lots)

Many brands already fuel loyalty with various exclusive perks and “rewards,” but this branding effort takes brand loyalty to a whole new level, building a tribe of hardcore loyalists who don’t just love a brand—they actually get their love publicly requited on a daily basis.

MINI Cooper picks its individual owners out of the crowd and shows everyone else on the road that they are special—very directly making individual owners feel like the cool kids in class. Absolutely brilliant.

But I have to admit, as brilliant as this effort is, there’s something about this kind of hyper-targeting that feels kind of creepy, like the talking billboards in Spielberg’s Minority Report—a bit too “Big Brother.”

Makes me wonder, as technology pushes the potential of marketing efforts, when does personalizing a message build loyalty and when does it turn people off?