Knowing a brand’s value enables the CEO, investors, and other stakeholders to make better, more informed decisions.  When an intangible asset like brand has a monetary value that can be tracked, the return on a new brand strategy or an investment in marketing initiatives can be more accurately understood.

The central role of brand value in business decision making indicates the importance of using the most sensitive and sophisticated brand-evaluation tools.  The BrandZ Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands is the only ranking based on a brand valuation methodology that is grounded in both quantitative customer research and in-depth financial analysis:

• It is the only ranking to be based on data about the brands; it draws from BrandZ, the world’s largest brand database, while other rankings only estimate brand equity.
• It is built up from country-level analysis, brand by brand and market by market.  Other valuations do a simple global valuation.
• It is customer focused; it measures the strength of brands, not corporations.
• It is comprehensive, with more brands and countries researched than any other ranking.
• It is predictive; prospects for short-term growth are calculated that have been proven to predict changes in value and in market share.

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	wendistry Does your company make the list? BrandZ Top 100 Global Brands http://www.wendistry.com/bsm
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“If you want a guarantee, buy a toaster.” ~Clint Eastwood

Kierkegaard once said, “Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward.”  In my opinion, this is especially vital when your company is looking to be innovative.

Everyone agrees that innovation is a good idea.  Nearly everyone also agrees that innovation is the best (if not sometimes the ONLY) path to growth, profit and market leadership.

So, if innovation’s such an amazingly awesome thing, why is it so difficult for companies to actually do it?  Are there hidden obstacles?  Preconceived notions?  Cultural roadblocks?  Yes, yes, and yes.  In a nutshell, people generally don’t like change.  To really be innovative requires a whole bunch of change, flexibility, and willingness to take on the unknown.  All three of which can be career (and company) makers or BIG-time breakers.

Out of the gate, you and your company have several innovation issues to overcome… Complexity, Giving Up, and Negativism.  Complexity, or what I like to call “scope creep,” happens because people usually succumb to the thinking that “if we’re going to be innovative, we have to do things radically differently than the ways we’ve been doing them.“  Which is true, but it doesn’t mean making a mountain out of a molehill.  Complexity expands the work required for innovation.  And then, it drowns your organization by draining it of the strength, vitality, and clarity of vision required for true innovation.  Expose it; measure it; and, remove it to refocus your team on new and better products/services, new and better customer service, and new and better marketing to get that innovative message out.

Giving up… the “I can’t” and “We won’t” syndrome.  If you try something innovative in your company and it works the first time, you really didn’t innovate.  Let me say that again… relentless persistence in overcoming real challenges is at the core of innovation.  The innovative company must be committed to a goal that is a “stretch goal.”  It must move the organization beyond where it currently sits.  Just like the pain endured by the contestants on The Biggest Loser, it’s gonna hurt.  Your people are going to want to quit.  You have to be committed to making your company known for innovative thinking and results to attract and retain top people and to continuously produce relevant products and services.  The days of the “cash cow” company are over.  (Note the risks of the “cash cow” company… complacency, turf wars, and no control over spending… yikes!)

Finally, negativism can be wrapped up in two predominant thoughts:  “We’ve tried that before and it didn’t work” (so, we’re still using the horse & buggy) or “We don’t want to try that because we don’t think it will work” (we’re scared because we don’t have a guarantee).  Millions of ideas have been tried before the technology to make them work was sufficiently developed.  Today’s smart phones were imagined decades ago when TV series Star Trek used a flip-open hand-held communicator.  Technology and human imagination advances rapidly, making possible what didn’t work before.

The change required for innovation is the only constant and the rate of change is accelerating.  To be a successful company, embrace change and see it as an enormous opportunity because while there is no guarantee, innovation marches on.

Twitter Comments

	wendistry "If you want a guarantee, buy a toaster." #ClintEastwood http://www.wendistry.com/umf
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	wendistry Guarantee vs. Innovation http://www.wendistry.com/umf
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With a tagline live young, the Evian web site continues to reflect its brand of fresh snowy French Alps mountain water.  “Water is essential to life.  It’s a fundamental element to your health and well-being,” says Evian, and to me, the pictures of beautiful mountains and beautiful people reinforce this message.  Cool, soothing, blue, and icy whites just scream health and freshness.

Which is why I’m also surprised by the “Fun Stuff” tab on their site.  Here you can use your cursor as a finger to draw on an icy, fogged over window, to create your specially designed snowflake storms, or to drag-and-drop a “skier” on the slopes and watch him ski down.  Is this video (or any of these tactics for that matter) ON BRAND?   Let me know what you think…

Twitter Comments

	PDadvocate1 RT @Wendistry: Evian Roller Babies http://www.wendistry.com/83q Now more fun after the Superbowl
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	wendistry Evian Roller Babies http://www.wendistry.com/83q
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Happiness is contagious, and that “contagious” quality is where marketing meets the market.  Not only does the Coca-Cola brand have a “lock” on happiness (after all, what other beverage can claim branding rights to Christmas?), Coca-Cola’s latest video, The Happiness Machine, is a perfect example of how viral happiness can be.

The brand’s first viral venture captures what happened when they placed a very special vending machine on a college campus.  The video launched on January 12 and topped a million views yesterday based solely on people sharing the video through Twitter, Facebook, blogs, and word-of-mouth.  The people in the video and people spreading the video will forever share a memory that cements the association of happiness with Coca-Cola.

I know I have great memories of Coca-Cola from when I was a kid at my grandparents’ house… it was all they every drank (Sorry, Pepsi).  I remember so clearly the hot Texas summers, and then, in the midst of the sweaty afternoon, there was a silver tray with ice-cold bottles of Coke and silver mint julep cups.  My mouth still waters as I evoke the memory.

How can marketers create these special moments… this magic?  And not just “viral video” magic, but that everyday life magic of the emotional connection that bonds people with your brand.  Can we conceive of the complete story and lead people down a path of creating smiles?  When you strategize on the reach of your marketing campaigns, do you think about the object, service, or experience in a way that creates an effect well over the horizon?  As marketers, that is our challenge and mission.

Coca-Cola’s new video…  The Happiness Machine

Twitter Comments

	Michael_Power RT @Wendistry: Coca-Cola KNOWS It's Brand http://www.wendistry.com/l8h
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	chevis RT @vsellis: RT @Wendistry: Coca-Cola KNOWS It's Brand http://www.wendistry.com/l8h
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	vsellis RT @Wendistry: Coca-Cola KNOWS It's Brand http://www.wendistry.com/l8h
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	wendistry Coca-Cola KNOWS It's Brand http://www.wendistry.com/l8h
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Vanity Fair magazine couldn’t have predicted how their February 2010 cover would fly off the shelves… due to a shirtless photo of Tiger Woods by Annie Leibovitz.  So, the question for today is how deeply do Personal Brands affect Corporate Brands?

To quote Vanity Fair’s Buzz Binnsinger, “In an age of constant gotcha and exposure, Tiger had always been the bionic man in terms of personality, controlling to a fault and controlled to a fault, smiling with humility and showing those pearly white teeth in victory or defeat.  In the world of pro golf, even fellow pros and other insiders didn’t really know him, because he didn’t want anybody to know him.”

“Some pro golfers, such as Phil Mickelson, wear their hearts on their sleeves during press conferences.  Mickelson could talk candidly about his game and the impact of his wife’s having breast cancer.  He could also be snarky and pissy.  Never Tiger.”

“Tiger learned very well to talk forever and say nothing,” says Joe Logan, a co-founder of a web site called MyPhillyGolf.com, which covers the game both nationally and in the Philadelphia region.  For Woods, Logan remembers, an emotional response to a flawless round was “I had a pretty good day.”  He never got rude or rattled.  He never got irritated with a stupid question, in large part because he knew that the camera was always on him.

So, if he was unknowable to the writers who covered him, he was equally unknowable to virtually all the other golfers on the tour.  Early on, he had learned that one of the rules of pro golf is to conform, a commandment only heightened in his case by his being black in a white man’s game.  What is clear now, however, is that he lived a very abnormal life all his life in a sport in which guys are very conventional, and if you are not conventional you get ostracized right away.  Whatever demons lurked within, he kept them well hidden.  I think too well hidden.

So, once Tiger returns to golf, which most think he will, he’ll simply be another player trying to win a tournament… Not the $100 million a year super-endorser.  What about Nike and their “wait and see” approach?  Nike took this approach when Kobe Bryant endured consequences for his extramarital affair in 2003-04. Kobe Bryant’s situation was more severe, as criminal charges were filed. Eventually, charges were dropped. At that point, Nike and Kobe Bryant resumed their relationship.

However, in the case of basketball, Nike has plenty of other celebrity endorsers.  And, for some reason, the general public seems to accept (and sometimes even assume) that basketball players will not be monogamous… almost like it’s a part of the “street cred.”  However, Nike Golf has been built around Tiger Woods.  There is no other since Jack Nicklaus that has been the clear golf brand leader like Tiger.  Even though Nike Golf’s branding activities with Tiger have been focused on Tiger’s golfing abilities, not his personal life, my question is:  Will his actions tarnish the brand?

What do you think?

Original post January 20, 2010 @ 13:54pm

January 23, 08:50am, LATEST UPDATE:

So, by now those of us who travel for business in and out of Dallas/Ft. Worth International airport have seen the latest and greatest Accenture… elephants and frogs??!!??!!  Who in the world thought this was a brilliant creative idea?  Doesn’t jungle animals just scream “High Performance. Delivered.” to you?

Yeah, I understand all Tiger’s crap came out hard and fast, so I can just imagine the scene of dozens of Creative Directors in a room desperately scribbling on notepads.  Suddenly one of them shouts, “I’ve got it!… Everybody loves animals!”

So now when you now rush past these innovative displayed of marketing creativity in airports nationally by February 1st, let me know if they make you stop, stare, and think, “Man, I really need some consulting!”

Dockers… Wear the Pants.  Doesn’t that just say it all?

According to its Facebook fan page:   “You’re not a bloke, not a fellow, chap, dude, cat, gent, or bro-ham. Face it, you are a man.”

Now, for all the completely over-the-edge feminists out there, I’m offering a contrarian opinion by Adiocracy.com who’s brand is, “Come across a piece of advertising that’s particularly inane or brilliant? We want to see it.”

Wendistry’s opinion, however, is that 2010 is the year of the man-backlash.  I truly believe that most guys (read:  middle of the road America, just-trying-to-make-a-living-and-do-the-right-thing) are sick to death of not knowing their place in the world any more.

Do they hold the door open for women any more?  Do they stand at the table pull out chairs for women?  Do they pick up things women have accidentally dropped?

As a woman, who likes her door held open, please, I really feel for men and I admire Dockers to staking a claim on an idea that I think will resonate and grow for them.  For those men out there who like the new Dockers brand position, here’s where to get more:  Art of Manliness

The original article above was posted on January 5, 2010.  Here is a January 24, 2010 update:

Sitting here watching the NFC Championship game, Saints vs. Vikings, and man-oh-man… a Dodge Charger commercial.  It’s “crafts-MAN-ship” and I’m feeling a manwagon coming on.  What do we think, now?

Twitter Comments

	wendistry Dockers MANifesto vs #DodgeCharger craftsMANship. http://www.wendistry.com/n8z #marketing #branding @artofmanliness
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