Perspectives - 2005, Issue 1

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Global Roundtable

How to Build Brand Magnetism - and Believers

 

Panelists:

Douglas Atkin

Douglas Atkin, author of The Culting of Brands. 		Theresa Quintanilla

Theresa Quintanilla, a Houston marketer who publishes her QViews marketing blog that looks specifically at brands. 		Mark Malinowski

Mark Malinowski, director of the New York Brand Marketing Practice with 15 years of experience in brand marketing. 		Serena de Morgan

Serena de Morgan, associate director, Global Brand Marketing Practice and managing director of the Consumer Brand Practice at Ketchum London.

Cults, they’re troublesome, right? Not to marketers, especially if they are devout believers in a particular brand, such as Starbucks or The Body Shop. As a marketer, wouldn’t you love to develop such sacred, long-lasting devotion to your brand?

That’s what Douglas Atkin explores in his book The Culting of Brands, even taking readers deep into the tactics of successful brands. His book proved the catalyst for this Perspectives focus on “Building Brand Believers Through Communication.” Atkin and three other brand-marketing experts, including two of Ketchum’s own brand-communications specialists, offer invaluable insights into how you, in this age when consumers absorb thousands of commercial messages daily, can build vital and robust brands through communication.

Just how critical is it today to build brand believers and why?

Douglas Atkin: Most of the industry is realizing that their consumers are becoming ‘marketing resistors.’ The traditional methods are facing indifference at best, active rejection at worst. In this context, it becomes very important to find alternative strategies for creating attachment to brands. Instead of throwing one’s hands up in despair, look at those brands bucking the trend and gaining ‘brand converts.’ Many of them are creating communities around their brands with the ensuing benefits of loyalty and especially advocacy. At a time when advertising and other classic methods are gaining less traction, the latter is especially desirable… it’s the most credible and persuasive form of conversion that exists.

Theresa Quintanilla: In the long run, those brands with ‘believers’ will have the lowest marketing costs and the greatest insight for keeping up with the marketplace. When your customers are willing to invest in the brand, your operating costs are lowered. This is good business, not just good marketing.

Mark Malinowski: In today’s rapid-fire world, it is more important then ever to build brand believers. With information and messages bombarding consumers every single day, the ultimate challenge is to get their attention and offer them something (via a branded product or service) that is of a perceived value. If you can deliver on that promise on a consistent basis, you are on the road to building believers for that brand.

Serena de Morgan: It’s very important. First, the sheer proliferation of products – both brand and own label, a growing threat to brands everywhere – has resulted in a mind-blowing choice for consumers and, therefore, a hugely competitive arena in which to compete for their hearts and minds. You can always be beaten on price, which means you must appeal to a higher order. A second reason would be increasing cynicism toward corporations and authorities coupled with the growing number of scares in any given sector. This makes it imperative that you build real trust and belief in a brand, not the least to weather the inevitable storms. Finally, there are ever more sources of influence or communication (e.g., the Web) that are hard to control — you need passionate advocates to weight that communication in your favor.

Are there universal qualities that a brand icon embraces that set it apart from others?

Atkin: Cult-like brands and brand icons are not necessarily the same thing, but many brand icons are also cult brands. Here are some distinguishing marks of a cult brand: (a) they will always have a clear and different set of values, or an ideology that separates them from the establishment, e.g., Apple and creativity; (b) they will have communities of believers around them; (c) they’ll stress their difference from the norm by appearance, iconography, ritual, etc. (for example, Harley riders and their anti-social appearance, uniform and behavior); (d) like any strong community, there will be a sense of mutual responsibility among members to each other and to the brand. Many recent studies have shown committed consumers volunteering product and marketing ideas to their brand.

Quintanilla: The only ‘universal quality’ of a brand icon is authenticity. If a brand is exactly what it says it is, then people find that they can trust it. The longer track record a brand has for authenticity and reliability, the stronger it is. Of course, that brand may suffer some trade-off in flexibility.

Malinowski: Iconic brands make a promise to consumers and keep that promise. With so many inconsistent things in life, it’s comforting to know that a brand can constantly deliver on what it promises and not let you down. The challenge is to find ways to speak to new audiences so that a brand can rejuvenate its consumer base and maintain relevancy while delivering on this promise.

De Morgan: Most brand icons have a very clear vision and message, and usually stand for something. They also are absolutely consistent in their core idea, approach and communication, which means consumers get a very similar (holistic) experience at every touch point, wherever they are. The best examples – the likes of Starbucks and Apple – really surround the consumer with a brand experience.

Is it more difficult today to build brand believers through traditional marketing avenues?

Atkin: Not necessarily. Apple still uses traditional advertising via its ‘Think Different’ and iPod campaigns to create a sense of an Apple community. However, as people watch less advertising and use other media, it makes sense to use that other media. In my book, I talk about the ‘Power of the Person’ as a recruitment-and-retention strategy… it’s the most effective strategy of them all. Face-to-face opportunities to make this work are important but, of course, the Internet also is a fantastic tool.

Quintanilla: Traditional marketing avenues suffer more from being overpriced than being difficult to use. Broadcast advertisements are the easy way out. Eventually the effectiveness of the approach will diminish and broadcast media may start to become more affordable. Maybe – we can always hope.

Malinowski: Yes, mainly because most traditional marketing channels have grown tired. If you lose the unexpected edge and fall back on status quo ideas and tactics, you lose the ability to surprise and attract a consumer. You literally fall in the middle of the pack. This is particularly true for a new brand trying to make its way into the marketplace. Without an edge or surprise, matched with a unique product benefit, you’re just another brand on a shelf.

De Morgan: Definitely. Of course, the most notable reason is the proliferation and fragmentation of media, which makes it hard for brands to effectively target and surround consumers on the same budget. Secondly, consumers are using other avenues to source information and communicate through – notably, the Web and developments such as blogging.

What communications technique do you find works extremely well to build brand believers?

Atkin: Person to person – either face to face or over the Internet – is, by far, the best form of recruitment and retention. Basically, any way that non-brand communities work should be considered for brands… and person-to-person is the prime one. This being a universal human need (to belong and communicate with each other), it transcends geography, race, language or creed. Less tactile methods, such as advertising, can be used as long as its role is to provide a rallying point for the brand community… as the 'Think Different' campaign did for Apple. For all the lonely ‘persecuted’ Apple users out there, it was a public validation and call to arms as the real change-makers of society.

Quintanilla: The best communications techniques for building brand believers are interactive, and there are thousands of them. All the marketer has to do is set up a two-way communication channel, and you don’t have to have an Internet connection – direct-response TV and operators standing by work just as well. Heck, you could invite people to mail you letters. I think Wired magazine invites readers to mail them artwork using the brand logo. I can think of at least two hurdles in using interactive techniques globally. The first is language, and the second is the target audience’s access to the response mechanism. So using interactive communications forces you to address each market individually, which is expensive.

Malinowski: Those that reach consumers on an emotional level and continually surround them with a consistent message. If it appears that a brand is speaking directly to a consumer, you’ve created a very powerful marketing platform.

De Morgan: Brand belief is best built through third-party endorsement from a respected source, whether a magazine, organization or individual, depending on the sector or idea we are looking to communicate. The method can travel globally but not always the specific person or organization, as this often is culturally or locally driven.

Is there a case study or anecdote that illuminates how best to communicate a brand’s magnetism to consumers?

Atkin: You can’t communicate magnetism; you have to be magnetic. And a brand is likely to be magnetic to those who are its devotees (i.e., not necessarily the whole market). The airline JetBlue has magnetism. The core ideology of the brand that we helped the company express and execute was ‘putting the humanity back into flying.’ It informs their hiring-and-training practices; in fact, everything they do. What makes JetBlue customers loyal isn’t the leather seats and satellite TV (although they’re important). It’s the feeling of respect that passengers get when they fly. And this is the basis of their sense of community that has been translated from the inside of the company to the outside, among consumers. It has to be ‘true’; it can’t be faked.

Quintanilla: Fast Company magazine broke through the avalanche of new business publications in the 1990s by adopting a risky graphic design and encouraging readers to go out and meet each other. Finding your brand believers requires that you be uniquely true to yourself and open to your customers. You can’t afford to use ‘borrowed interest.’ You just have to put yourself out there and be yourself. And love your customers, of course. But, as Fast Company illustrates, times change. It has been hurt by the technology slowdown and the subsequent fallout in advertising, and it’s now a shadow of its former self.

Malinowski: When Chrysler introduced its 300C model, it knew it had an innovative vehicle that literally could sell itself. So, along with traditional marketing techniques, the brand got the car out to key opinion leaders and ensured it was 'seen' at the right events. This viral concept helped to build a groundswell of support for the vehicle, including celebrities within the hip-hop world. To this day, Chrysler can’t keep enough 300Cs in dealers’ lots.

De Morgan: Launch of the Apple iPod offers a great example of a magnetic brand. It would take a book to analyze it, but one factor is incredibly clever use of influence. Ensuring that the right people, notably people consumers aspire to, have the product/brand. Also important is allowing it to build and seed slowly, thereby creating real must-have status. The example of actor Will Smith, who was seeded with the product at the Oscars and voluntarily talked about his iPod on national television, is a good example of how Apple's seeding strategy manifested itself. The other piece, which is hard for all brands to follow, is personal passion. Steve Jobs is Apple. He makes the decisions and is that magnetic personality behind the brand.

What most quickly damages a brand icon’s popularity?

Atkin: Lying. Most cults have failed when the leadership does not live its own ideology, and the same goes for brands. The Body Shop began to falter when it was exposed that it had lied about the origin and ingredients of its products. Cult or cult-brand members have often sacrificed much to be members of the group, so the stakes are high. Be truthful and you’ll maintain loyalty. Slow down or lie and you not only will be abandoned, you’ll convert believers into brand terrorists.

Quintanilla: Krispy Kreme sort of ran off a cliff by getting too wrapped up in itself and not keeping a healthy perspective. They loved their customers in a selfish way and lost sight of the customers – and shareholders’ – best interest. No easy answers. The easiest way to damage a brand is to allow the brand to harm the community, even if it’s inadvertent.

Malinowski: A brand can easily be damaged if it tries to be something that it’s not or if it overextends itself. As a result, if consumers experience disappointment with a brand, they can find it’s hard to forget that disappointment. This has happened with many 'iconic' brands such as Coke, and it has taken years for those brands to gain back credibility with consumers.

De Morgan: Globalization can cause issues. Starbucks has had issues in some markets, both in terms of taking over the high street and its sourcing of coffee. However, what can most quickly damage a brand is a product issue. When Coca Cola introduced a new formula, consumers fled. If that product issue results in a health scare (e.g., Perrier water) then that damage can be even harder to repair.

What advice can you give to maintain a brand icon’s reputation?

Atkin: Keep investing in the community you’ve created in the ways I’ve already described.

Quintanilla: Every brand is part of an ecosystem that includes employees, customers and the greater community. You have to decide how the brand will contribute to the greater good, and be realistic, even while maintaining your enthusiasm.

Malinowski: Stay focused, stay consistent and constantly innovate without forgetting what you are.

De Morgan: While a brand needs to be true to its equity, consistent in its idea and confident in execution, it also needs to avoid being arrogant. Listen carefully to what is going on around you and how your brand might be perceived before you act. This is particularly true when entering a new market.

If a brand icon is tarnished, what are the first couple of things you would do to restore its luster?

Atkin: Get it back on mission. Jobs did this at Apple when it experienced his ‘Second Coming.’ He started to launch products that were consistent with its ideology of creativity and non-conformity. He restated the brand ideology via the ‘Think Different’ campaign. Draw a line in the sand that demonstrates where your brand takes a different stand on things versus the establishment… even at the expense of polarization. Cult brands often do polarize. Cults have always challenged the establishment, and that’s what you should do.

Quintanilla: You must go back to the core, to the people who most value the brand, who’ve received the greatest benefit. You can apologize and ask for their help in restoring the brand. Or you can reaffirm your commitment to their long-term interest.

Malinowski: Go back to basics and blow out the key brand attributes that consumers have known and loved. If a brand makes a mistake, it is OK to admit it as long as consumers know the brand is still really the product or service they have known and loved through the years.

De Morgan: It depends on what has happened – whether it’s a relatively minor problem or something major, such as a product issue. If it’s a question of just appearing a bit old-fashioned, then one of the first things to do is talk to key influencers to help understand why and what could be leveraged to reinvent the brand – including recruiting influencers relevant to today's market.