Branding in a Troubled Economy
presented to:
Texas Public Relations Association
February 28, 2009

“The most negative brand in America.”
+ Representative George Miller
(D) California

Guilt by association
“ Part of the problem is that the law, which comes up
for reauthorization every five years, became closely
associated with President George W. Bush, and as his
popularity slid, the law, and its name, came under
attack and ridicule.”

Rebrand!

Candidates
+ Mental Asset Recovery Program (MARP)
+ Resourcing Educational and Development Outcomes (REDO)
+ All American Children Are Above Average (AACAAA)
+ Not Even We Think This Will Work Act
+ Act to Help Children Read Gooder

the morals of the story
+ branding can’t cure everything
+ branding has become part of our social currency
+ branding is not as simple as it looks

Disposable?
Single Use Camera

Disposable?
SUC

Disposable?
One-Time Use Camera

What is a brand?

1. Marketing 2. Advertising
3. Public Relations 4. Branding
Source: The Brand Gap by Marty Neumeier

a brief history of branding

from a mark to a meaning
(and billions)
$4.1
billion
(in cash)

More than one way to build brand equity
equity
perceived quality
price functionality associations

“There is a new strain in marketing theory that holds that even the
lowliest natural resources can develop brand identities”
+ Naomi Klein
No Logo

Southwest Recruiting Ad

The brand platform

Putting the platform to work
Simplify Amplify
Experience
Web
Communications
Identity system Culture
Interactive Transactions
Print Environment
Identity elements Products
Advertising
Logo(s) Point-of-purchase
Product
Strategies Imagery Vehicles
Naming
Color Retail
Brand
Typography Signage
architecture
BRAND Graphic motif Uniforms
PLATFORM Messaging Format Environments
Simplification Sound Identity
Technology
management
+Amplifire™
+Namequest™

Deconstructing the Apple brand
cause tools for the creative mind
reason for action
promise technology that is artful, elegant
and radically easy to use
declaration of intent

The compelling truth
an advanced technology company
that produces artful, elegant,
radically easy to use products

Brand as storyteller
+ Brands are becoming more than differentiating marks and
corporate missions. Some tell stories that are deeply
connected to the ego and personal community.

narrative identity stored In
consumer subconscious
beats
story beat exposed to consumers consumer matches beat to the
narrative stored in identity centers
of the subconscious brain
Narrative priming
+ The source narrative already exists in the consumer’s head
+ Brand touchpoints prime the brain to recall the story
+ Through repeated experiences, the brand is linked to the narrative in long
term memory and validates the world view

Brand as narrative device
narrative
theme characters plot aesthetics
cause stakeholders products touchpoints
+ visual system
+ voice
promise

CASE STUDY
Putting brands to work

CASE STUDY

Branding in a down economy
+ Should we spend at all?
+ Should we shift our brand
spending plans?
+ Which brand investments will
generate the most ROI?

FALSE PERCEPTION
“a rich man’s game”

Game for the industrious
+ In the last recession, most companies that invested in their brands
outperformed peers when economic growth returned.

America, the optimistic

THE RIGHT METAPHOR
the brand is a blast furnace

the nervous consumer
+ US Consumer confidence
indexed at 25
+ Many consumers link self
concept to objects and
brands
+ TMT research reveals that in
times of adversity, favored
brands provide comfort
+ Your brand asset may be
more comforting to the
consumer than a discount
Source: The Safety of Objects: Materialism,
Existential Insecurity, and Brand Connection,
Journal of Consumer Research, 2009

Brands and identity formation
a brief history of identity formation in the u.s.a.
early americans modern era
identity linked to old- identity linked to consumption
world customs and and feedback from
generational norms environment and “others”
tradition inner other
transcendentalists
identity linked to lessons learned
in childhood and readings from
the “inner compass”

Psychological underpinnings

A shift from brand to discount
might discount your future
“Making attribute information salient to consumers may switch the locus of equity
from brands to attributes. Any equity that the attribute draws from the brand
reduces brand equity.”
Consumer brand perceptions are “sticky” and tend to be influenced by
the most recent brand exposure, which frames the next.
Locus of Equity
A Discount
The Brand Attribute

Beware the misguided
brand investment

“It’s just a faster-looking steed”
+ George Saridakis
Design Manager,
2010 Mustang

Before After
Source: brandnew.com

“ We wanted to give the Mustang pony a more
realistic feel. We lifted the head to make the
pony more proud, tipped the neck into the
wind to give it a feeling of greater speed and
better balance.”
+ Douglas Gaffika
Chief Designer,
2010 Mustang

Source: brandnew.com

Three guidelines for branding in bad times
+ Simplify your architecture
+ Tap brain power
+ Align your messaging

Simplify your architecture

Brand architecture models
Branded House House of Brands Hybrid
Associated products Situational/Combination
Master brand

Our house
Pros:
Branded House  Offers clear, logical paths to new brands and extensions
 Value of master brand preserved and transfered easily
Master brand
Cons:
 Dependent upon the health of the master brand
 Sometimes makes it harder to micro-segment

One house, many brands
Pros:
House of Brands  Insulates and “protects” individual brands
 Communicates breadth
Associated products
 Allows for competing brands within the same category
Cons:
 Expensive to promote and maintain

Something in-between
Hybrid
Pros:
Hybrid  Flexible–provides option to use master brand, or not
 Allows for segmentation through endorsement
Situational/Combination
Cons:
 Difficult to manage
 Rife with “slippery slopes”

When in doubt,
default to the branded house

CASE STUDY
“MOTOization” created complexity for Motorola
Extending to business platforms
Proliferation of names
And consumer products

CASE STUDY
Motorola’s new brand architecture
Masterbrand
Welcome to the brand
HELLO MOTO
Experience of the brand
MOTOME
Strategic sub-brands
MOTO + 1 to 4 easy-to-pronounce
characters or short word
Products, services, technologies
Trademark names
Motorola + Suggestive name
Descriptive names
Motorola + Generic name or Alphanumerics

CASE STUDY
Architecture decision tree
Create a version Extend an existing Create a descriptive name Create a trademark name Create a strategic
name sub-brand
Innovation Unique value The Motorola Naming Game Powerful Substantial
proposition brand resources changing marketing revenue
Is this a new Is the offer so Is Motorola + Is there time, Is this a game Will there be Will the offer
product, and unique that it descriptor budget and changing offer, significant generate
not a cannot live under insufficient? resources to create, upon which the marketing significant
manage, market and success of support over the revenue?
modification of the umbrella of
an existing an existing name? extend a trademark Motorola long-term?
product? name? depends?

Brand architecture drivers
+ Does your portfolio reflect and reinforce your brand and business strategy?
Alignment + Is there a clear relationship between your brands?
The optimization of individual
brands with the corporate strategy + Do your brands invite the customer relationships you want?
+ Are your branding practices cost-efficient?
+ How well do customers understand what you sell?
Loyalty + How loyal are customers to your brands?
How the marketplace feels about
the current brands and how they + What are the risks and rewards of change?
are likely to react to change
+ Can you learn from competitors or peers?
+ Are you getting your money’s worth from current brand investments?
Financial + Can you afford to move to an ideal scenario?
How much change will cost and
what return should be expected + What return should you expect from different models?
+ Will brand change create unacceptable cultural disharmony?
Obstacles + Do legal or regulatory obstacles stand in the way of change?
The human and operational
barriers to change + Are your current operations and technology able to accommodate brand integration?

don’t be afraid to simplify
from the middle

Prototype theory
superordinate animals furniture Apple
basic level bird chair iPhone
subordinate sparrow Stickley 3G

tap brain power

frosh frish frish frosh
frish frosh frish frosh
frosh
frish frish frosh frish
frosh frosh frosh frish
frish frosh frosh frish

“...back vowels such as the [u] sound in dull or ugh are very often
found in words expressing disgust or dislike (e.g., blunder, bung,
bungle, clumsy, muck), and words beginning with sl also tend to
have a negative connotation (slouch, slut, slime, sloven). Words
beginning with fl often express movement (flutter, flap, flicker).
Across languages and cultures, similarities have also been noted.”
+ Phonetic Symbolism and Brand
Name Preference
Journal of Consumer Research, 2007

0100011001100011111100101101110011010001
+ Apples are delicious 1001011010000001001101001100111110000001
1000011010011111010100001101110000110101
0011011000100100100111100101001100100010
+ Apples are good for you 0010001000100000010110101101101101000001
0011010101101100110100110011110010111111
0010000101000100101010000100010010000001
+ Apples are natural 0011011111110100101010010010110000001000
0101111001100010001000001001101001011000
1000000111001100110110111011011111000100
1101001110001100010011101011111010111010
0010110011111101101110101010111011001010
1001001000000010110011011000011111101011
1101011101010001001101000011100011010011
0101100110100111001000011001110001110000
0100011001010001110111110101000011101110
0101101101001001100001111110111011000011
1111110000010010010100011101100000011001
0001110111001000100111110100100011101010
1000011111010101111100001000101101000110
0100101101100111111110100100110110110010
1111001110100000100011000001110010010101
0011100111110001101101100101100110000110
0110111010101000111100100011000100011000
0000110100111111100011111100011011000101

The Power of Experience
+ Engaging
“The engaging aspects of product experience can lead to illusions + “Learning from experience is
of control ... improved consumer memory when information more seductive than learning
learned through experience was organized around a goal.” from education.”
Stephen J. Hoch
+ Non-Partisan
“Consumers are skeptical of advertising claims, especially those
that can only be verified through experience ... product experience
is credible because it is basic, with no obvious staging by a self-
interested outside party.”
+ Pseudodiagnostic
“Experience is selective, and since it does not come along with a
control group, interpretation is required ... people learn brand
associations that later block the learning of new attribute
associations.”
+ Endogenous (affected by changes in tastes)
“Beggen (1992) found that people evaluated a brand more
favorably merely because they owned it ... Consumers engage in
creative, motivated reasoning when faced with justifying a choice.”

align your messaging

Connecting messages to brand
Characteristics of Good
Messages Brand Messages
+ Reasonably consistent
Voice
over time
+ Connected to a distinctive
Promise
manner, tone and style
+ Sometimes subtextual
+ Tailored to audiences
while retaining a familiar
character

+ Voice attributes
+ Messages
+ Narrative architecture
Content in voice
siegel+gale | REAGAN MESSAGING FRAMEWORK | 26 August, 2008

CASE STUDY
Framework deconstructed
The voice attributes derive from the brand platform.
They guide the tone and manner of verbal
Voice attributes communications.
Clever | Determined | Dignified | Optimistic
Tonal characteristics of Reagan
Library verbal identity signature
The messages are high level assertions to be communicated at targeted
audience segments. These messages rest at the corporate / brand level,
and are intended to remain in tact for several consecutive years.
Messages
Visit one of Southern California’s “must see” destinations.
Illustrative message targeted at
tourists
The narrative architecture provides a few storytelling constructs
that can be used to compose and edit copy so that it naturally
Narrative connects with the Reagan Library voice attributes and conveys a
architecture sense of the brand promise.
Anecdotal Bookends Like the oratorial style of Reagan himself, this construct
delivers a message within the context of a personal anecdote about real life
experience. It often works well when used with lighter, more optimistic subjects.
Architectural construct for framing a a
message with voice attributes

CASE STUDY
Reagan Library copy illustration
Voice influence – the language choices
conjure a determined, optimistic and
dignified tone – implies “you can act and
change anything”
After
Before
He stood at the podium on the terrace of the West Front of the U.S.
Capitol, a break with tradition that provided a sweeping view of the
Artifacts from President Reagan’s childhood
great mall which now teemed with thousands of spectators. It was
and professional career provide physical
unusually warm that January afternoon, as a nation gathered in to
evidence of his extraordinary life. Step through
listen to the vision of its 40th president.
a model of the Dixon Arch in Illinois to
experience Reagan’s youth, while his Eureka
“We must act today in order to preserve tomorrow,” he told them.
College letter sweater recalls his student years.
“And let there be no misunderstanding–we are going to begin to act,
A recreated studio booth highlights his early
beginning today.”
radio broadcasting career, which led to an
acting contract with Warner Bros. Film clips.
In a leadership career that spanned more than five decades, Ronald
Original costumes and movie posters trace his
Reagan inspired Americans to act and achieve more than they
days in the movies, the Screen Actors Guild,
imagined. His legacy thrives at The Reagan Library, one of Southern
and on television, as host of GE Theater and
California’s most beautiful destinations where an ongoing stream of
Death Valley Days. Glimpse into Ronald and
interactive events and exhibits rediscovers Reagan’s values, actions
Nancy Reagan’s devoted marriage, a love story
and spirit of determination. Experience the studio days that shaped
straight out of a Hollywood script. Learn about
his future role as the “great communicator.” Glimpse at fragments of
Reagan’s growing involvement in politics.
the Berlin Wall, torn down from his bold leadership against the cold
Witness his presidency, from reviving the
war. Step aboard Air Force One to learn how Reagan changed the
economy, reducing the size of the federal
face of global diplomacy.
government, and ending the threat of nuclear
war. See a piece of the Berlin Wall, immerse
But The Library is more than a record of the past. It celebrates and
yourself in Camp David and Rancho del Cielo.
Use of
continues the mission of one of America’s most vibrant visionaries,
And, in 2005, walk through the Air Force One anecdotal
echoing the hopeful sentiment he shared that January day on the
that President Reagan used throughout his bookends to
threshold of his presidency, when he recalled the words of a soldier
eight years in office. frame the
on the western front: message of the
copy
“I will work, I will save, I will sacrifice, I will endure, I will fight
cheerfully and do my utmost, as if the issue of the whole struggled
depended upon me alone.”
Embedded message – visit a “must see” destination

CASE STUDY
Extending messaging
Empower
Organizations need to have the
structures and tools in place to
Inform
empower employees to deliver
brand-centered results, so that
Employees know what the
the promises being made by the
brand promise is and why it
brand are kept by every is right for the organization.
employee.
Inspire
Employees must be inspired to believe in the brand and
the role they have to play to support it. Inspiration
results from creating compelling and emotional
dramatizations of the brand.

Three guidelines for branding in bad times
+ Simplify your architecture
+ Tap brain power
+ Align your messaging

a word from your sponsor

global
strategic
branding
firm

Siegel+Gale applies
the art and science of
simplicity to create
branding programs that
help organizations excel.

serving clients around the world from strategic locations
London
New York
Los Angeles
Dubai

Global network through partnership with Fleishman-Hillard

What we do
Research Visual Identity Design
Brand Strategy Environmental Branding
Brand Architecture Digital Strategy + Design
Naming Experience Simplification
Content Development Brand Alignment
78

over 40 years of experience…

Gratuitous plug...
+ Explores how the best brands tell
their stories through unconventional
media
+ Describes a unique cycle that
transforms ordinary brands into
cultural phenomena
+ Explains how brands play a role in
identity development and cultural
norms