Three Tips for Creating Brand Value with a Product that is Co-Branded

Jeremy Swenson

1) Leverage Your Distributors Sales Metrics and Satisfy Their Lead Times:
Many great products are made up of many other great products, more commonly known as components.  Yet sometimes these components make a huge share of the end products brand value, and in many cases they are co-branded.  Take for example, a Dell Computer with an Intel i5 processor.  This processor is the biggest part of the computers brand appeal outside of the Dell name brand.  For retailers who sell computers, understanding this in an effort to optimize sales requires sharing information with computer distributors so that they can order the products from manufactures to meet distribution lead times.  Retailers also need to know how well and what their distributors are selling in their respective markets so they can anticipate future sales and plan their marketing accordingly.  This does not mean that a large electronics distributor would share a competitors’ sales data, but it does mean that a distributor would share general information on a new product or model that an electronics retailer was thinking about marketing; some reciprocity is needed to better define the emerging markets and eventual marketing plan which considers the distributors lead time.

2) Market the Two or Three Branded Components of the End Product as One Better Product and Use Verbs:
Whatever co-branded product you are marketing, the end user buys it for its overall package, even though they may favor one branded component over another.  Knowing this means that all of the co-branded signage, displays, fliers, and even web-ads need to complement each other, not dilute each other or distract from each other.  This absolutely makes for a more complicated and challenging marketing mix.  Yet it makes for a more distinct marketing message, and a better customer experience (assuming your product is better than the market standard).  The better than average product you are marketing also brings in a higher market price because of the two or three branded components which in theory offers the customer more features and better performance – a  high end laptop or cell phone for example.  Most importantly, when executing the marketing of this product remember to market the product experience with VERBS, which in the cell phone or laptop space include: PORTABLITY-MOVING, SPEED-TRAVELING, CONNECTIVITY-COMMUNICATING, 3D VISUALS-LIVING AND SEEING.

3) Descriptively Communicate the Synergies of the Co-Branded End Product as a Value Added:
Lets face it co-branded products are often high price products, so customers expect to get more out of them.  This means that to market them you need to be able to communicate the synergies that the product offers.  This is one of the biggest marketing differentiators from products that are simple or single branded.  Take for example a Dell laptop with an Intel i5 processor and Harman Kardon speakers.  The synergies you get include: personalized home theater audio, crisp and fast movie and photo visuals, and the ability to multitask without compromising performance.  The value added is more performance out of one machine so you don’t have to rely on your desktop computer, your old projector TV, or your Sony Boom box - boy have we come a long way from the hand held CD player.

Jeremy Swenson, MBA, is an experienced marketer, marketing manager, communicator, sales person, and business analyst/academic.  He has extensive product experience with mortgages, loan/lines, checking accounts, savings accounts, money markets accounts, pay day loans, CDs, property and causality insurance, playing jazz, and even some basic experience auditing employee benefit programs.  Additionally, his background includes federal work experience as a Rural Associate Carrier with the U.S.P.S., and as an Enumerator with the U.S. Census Bureau (Dept. of Commerce) in 2000.  He has been active with the MN AMA since 2009 and serves on the Social Media/Marcom Committee.  You can reach Jeremy at jer.swenson@live.com. 

How to Deal with Negative Comments

Beth Gasser

After helping dozens of small businesses take their first step into social media, I have a list of the most common questions and concerns business owners have about this critical venture. Two things almost always happen.

Won’t We Encourage Negative Comments?

If a business hasn’t yet established any social media presence, it’s is common for them to ask: “Isn’t it better not to solicit negative comments?” While nobody wants to solicit negative comments, giving an opportunity for feedback doesn’t mean all you will get are negative comments.

In reality, people are going to talk whether you’re online to find out or not. Social media is a way to connect with others and make a statement about your brand. 

How Do I Handle Negative Comments?

There are lots of things you can do to turn social media into a valuable asset for your business and avoid negative comment disasters.

1. Plan: Before you jump into social media, plan for negative and positive comments. How will you use positive comments? Will you reward customers who love telling people about you? How will you respond to negative comments?
2. Moderate: Part to moderate comments and discussions. Will you allow comments to post without approval? If so, how often (be realistic) will you be able to check on your various social media sites?
3. Monitor: Use as many tools as possible to find out what is being said. Google Alerts, Email, WordPress, NutShell Mail, HootSuite, are some popular tools to be notified right away.
4. Beat ‘Em To It: Address issues first and head-off potential negative comments. If there’s a known issue with a product, don’t wait for someone else to post about it. Take a pro-active approach.  People appreciate a business willing to “admit and move on."
5. Accentuate the Positive: Good comments almost always outweigh the number of negative comments. If you have a happy customer who is stopping into your office to tell you about her experience, ask her to post her comments to Facebook. Negative comments will happen, but encouraging positive ones will bring balance.
6. Beware of Spam: There are plenty of spam posts on social media sites, so be leery of rapid comments by someone who just started following you. If you aren’t sure, take the conversation offline (private message, email, phone call) and approach them to see what you can do to help. If you get no response, it’s likely not a customer with a legitimate concern. Delete spam comments.
7. Patience: As hard as it is, having patience is key. Don’t post a “knee-jerk” response. I guarantee it won’t be the response you’d prefer later. Think about the comment, and formulate how you want to respond.  
8. Allies: Allow others in your community to stick up for the brand they love. I’ve seen this happen many times. One unhappy customer actually generates responses from a plethora of other customers who are willing to help remedy the situation, defuse the comments, or completely negate the claims.
9. Take Action: Explore the negative comment and see if it actually has merit. See if you can find a trend in similar comments. If so, discuss as a business what can be done. In some cases, you need to alert your customer service, IT staff, quality assurance team, or whoever can best look into matters

It’s never easy to hear negative criticism, but some businesses find ways of handling comments graciously and turning them into opportunity. If you have an example of how a negative comment was handled that you really can appreciate, please share it.

Beth Gasser is a Social Media Consultant for Vivid Image helping small businesses reach customers and achieve marketing goals using social media. Beth travels around rural Minnesota teaching and speaking on social media topics.  

Why you should focus on brand-in-action

Marc Sokol

“Our differentiator is service. Others may say the same thing, but they don’t deliver like we do!”

So said the sales associate showing me a car on their lot last week.  In essence he was telling me that his success is no longer about automotive brand…

…it’s all about brand-in-action.

Building, positioning, selling and evaluating the brand is what many of us in the marketing field do.  However, when it’s employees who bring the brand to life; when service is a major part of what customers care about, then it’s time to recast brand as brand-in-action.

I probed the sales associate about vehicle pricing and how they compare with other dealers offering similar cars.  His answer was almost philosophical (for a used car dealer anyway):  “Web-enabled information access has completely changed price comparison shopping.  The only real differentiator is how we treat you now and after you become a customer.”

This tells me that if you are marketing anything beyond packaged goods, then you are in the business of service delivery.  Your opportunity is to shape the message of the real value proposition that draws prospects to your market.  Where employees deliver that value proposition to customers, they need to be part of your marketing message.

It’s the same for people who work with financial products: when you get them to disclose what they really think, they say there isn’t much difference in the products they offer vs. their closest competitors.  But they will swear by some measure of service differentiation – faster processing, easier access, more personal customer service. 

If you are in the creative side of the business, take a lesson from Paco Underhill, author of Why we buy: The science of shopping.  Observe how customers buy; then look for ways to market to that experience.   Or map post-purchase experience and market to the best of those experiences.  USAA’s financial services ads, targeting military families, does a great job of this with their message, “We know what it means to serve. Let us serve you.”

The real opportunity for marketing is to capture the experience and build a brand message around that experience.  If you want a sustainable message, then build one that employees will choose to live out each and every day:

1.     Identify aspects of the service experience before, during purchase that make it memorable and worth sharing with others.

2.     Ask what skills and interaction employees should display at those customer touchpoints.

3.     Define the value proposition based on what you want customers to experience at key touchpoints

Brand-in-action – it’s the real value of your brand.

Marc Sokol is an organizational psychologist with an eye for how people and teams can be more effective, even in a dysfunctional company. He is part of M Squared Group, a data-driven marketing consultancy.   

MN AMA Annual Conference Spotlight: David Brier

David Brier

Having a unique blend of practical realism coupled with the ability to challenge the normal and average, award-winning designer and brand identity expert David Brier wanted to arm this year's attendees with some crisis-crunching brand strategies. Tools to ignite or reinvigorate any brand. The result is a never-before-seen presentation, "What’s Killing Your Brand (and how to kill it before it kills you)."

 Brier states, "So many brands are struggling and getting frantic with ‘What do I say, how do I say it and where do I say it to make an impact?’ that I wanted to make a presentation at this year’s conference that would give each attendee a few powerful tools they could walk away with and apply immediately."

 The presentation will be delivered with Brier's trademark wit and humor that professionals have come to love showcasing recent work (and the results from those strategies) for Botanical Bakery, Big Dot of Happiness, New York City celebrity skin care expert Joanna Vargas, Menomonie Chamber of Commerce, Legacy Chocolates and others.

 Brier’s presentation, focused on the B2C brand mix, will focus on:

• Minimizing waste while creating a killer brand

• Creating a brand that leads and doesn’t merely follow.

• Creating a brand that knows when to rock when others roll

• Using a little known exercise to elevate any brand’s perceived value

• A strategy for creating a brand that factually stands out (versus merely blending in)

• Saying goodbye to brand strategies that are a few fingers short of a high five (and loving your newfound freedom)

In addition, there will be a special section in the presentation on “what social media cannot achieve (unless you have one key element in place first).”

 Brier concludes, "If your brand is a few fingers short of a high five, this presentation will light your candle. It will also answer, 'Why is your brand is costing you a small fortune to achieve any success at all?' "

David Brier is a native New Yorker now living and working one hour east of Minneapolis. David is a brand identity expert, veteran designer, author, speaker and Fast Company expert blogger.  "Cookie cutters are for baking, not branding," states David Brier, chief gravity defyer at DBD International. David's worked with Revlon, Estee Lauder, Jim Henson Associates, Rolling Stone magazine, the New York Times Sunday magazine and the Trump Organization, as well as numerous local and regional companies and organizations earning David over 300 international and national industry awards.  Equally comfortable designing the look of words, David's skill with the use of words is equally respected. David released a remarkable book entitled DEFYING GRAVITY & RISING ABOVE THE NOISE, the book on brand elevation that has found its way into the hands of Donald Trump and Steve Jobs.  You can follow him on twitter @davidbrier.

Please register for the 2010 MN AMA Annual Conference taking place next Monday, November 8th in Minneapolis, MN.  This year, we will be hearing from a variety of innovative, strategic and on-trend marketing professionals, who have great insight on how to grow your business, as well as your professional skill set.  Registration concludes Wednesday, November 3rd at 12:00 a.m., so be sure to reserve your spot!

Who brings your brand promise to life?

By Marc Sokol

Readers of our last post resonated to the importance of aligning the brand message marketing sends out to customers and prospects with the behavior that is displayed by customer service. If these two aren’t aligned you are just wasting your time and money.

Elsewhere you can see marketing described as the metaphorical lighthouse, beaming your brand message to the ships (potential customers) out at sea. Customer service, in turn, is the port, ready to greet those ships when they like what they see and guide them to shore by the lighthouse.

When we have alignment, life is good! When we don’t, fingers go pointing. It’s easy to see how the lighthouse might claim the port is shabby, or how the port might claim the lighthouse is casting the wrong message. Sometimes what they both really need is to look for support from managers who can bridge the two groups.

Here’s one story: Years back I managed the Washington, DC office of a consulting firm. When we moved buildings I had the opportunity to make some decisions where staff would sit in the new location. In most consulting firms it’s the senior consultants who get first choice (and all) of the high-priced real estate, the rooms with ‘a view’. One of my first choices was to assign Sondra, our customer service manager, to an office that had a nice window overlooking the Potomac River (instead of an interior office with no view). She loved that view! Surprised (shocked actually) at what seemed to be an overly kind gesture, Sondra asked me why. My answer…

“Sondra, you are the first point of contact when someone calls our office. You are the one here every day, while others are often out of the office. That view out the window makes you smile, and when a client calls I want them to be able to feel that smile of yours!”

Sondra never let me down, just as she never let down our customers. I wasn’t being nice; I was just making sure we matched our brand promise with our customers’ experience of that brand promise.

That’s my story. What’s yours?
When and how did someone you worked for take your firm’s brand promise to heart?
How has your company made an effort to increase alignment between marketing and customer service groups?

Marc Sokol is an organizational psychologist with an eye for how people and teams can be more effective, even in a dysfunctional company. He is part of M Squared Group, a data-driven marketing consultancy.

FUEL Your Creativity, THRIVE in Brand Development Contest

Have you seen the new Wheaties FUEL™ cereal in your neighborhood grocery store or viewed recent promotional campaigns for this Wheaties^® brand extension? Did Ben Johnson’s blog posts about Big G’s extensive co-creation efforts to revitalize the 85-year-old iconic Wheaties^® brand fascinate you? The MN AMA is proud to bring you exclusive access to the Wheaties FUEL™ development team in our upcoming Morning Program in April!

But wait, innovative marketing ideas are meant to be shared. To encourage intellectual discussions in brand development, the MN AMA is proud to present our second social media contest! Prizes include:

• Grand Prize: One full-year supply of Wheaties FUEL™, a $100 value
• Two signed Wheaties FUEL™ Cereal Packages, valued at $50 each
• Two free passes for the April program, valued at $50 each

The rules are simple. First, review Ben’s blog posts (The Wheaties FUEL™ Development Story Part 1 and Part 2) and the Wheaties.com website to familiarize yourself with General Mill’s product co-creation strategy. Then tell us your thoughts about the Wheaties FUEL™ campaign:

• What do you like about it or what don’t you like about it?
• What should Big G consider to improve their co-creation and promotional campaign?
• Provide an example of how similar product development and marketing strategy may or may not be successfully applied to another branded product/service other than the ready-to-eat cereal category.

Two-ways to Participate and Win:ⁱ

1. Participate through Facebook:
   Become a Fan of MNAMA and Wheaties on Facebook. Submit your answers via MNAMA Discussion: “FUEL Your Creativity, THRIVE in Brand Development Contest Submission (3/30/2010, 8AM CST - 04/05/2010, 12:00PM CST)”
2. Participate through Twitter:
   Follow @MNAMA and @Wheaties_FUEL on Twitter if you aren’t already doing so. Submit your answers via Twitter with hashtags #MNAMA #Wheaties. (NOTE: Both hashtags must be included in each qualified tweet.)

Be honest, be creative and be reasonable. All you have to do is share or tweet your original idea(s). Share and tweet as much as you'd like - just be sure to follow the instructions above. Don't want to join Facebook or Twitter? Sorry... this is the only way to enter this contest.

The contest will begin at 8:00 AM CST on Tuesday, March 30 and run until 12:00PM CST on Monday, April 5. Any discussion responses or tweets submitted before or after these dates/times will not be considered. One Signed Wheaties FUEL™ Cereal Package and one Free Program pass will be awarded to the top responses in each social media channel.ⁱⁱ The grand prize will be awarded to the best response received between Facebook and Twitter. The lucky winners will be announced at 5:00 P.M. on Tuesday, April 6. All prizes must be claimed at the event on April 13 at General Mills Headquarters, so please be sure you are able to attend! We promise it will be worth clearing your schedule for.

Questions? Feel free to leave a comment here, post your question on Facebook Participant Q&A discussion post or reach us via Twitter @MNAMA. Good luck, and spread the word!

ⁱ    Winning is limited to one (1) prize per participant. Participants may elect to participate exclusively through Facebook, Twitter or both. All participants must fully comply with the selected social media channel(s) requirements. Odds of winning are subjected to the quality of responses and the total number of participations. All submissions will be reviewed and judged by the MN AMA social media team. Current MN AMA Board Members and Social Media Team volunteers are not eligible to participate in this contest.

ⁱⁱ    Subjected to the quality of responses and the number of participations in each approved social media channel, the MN AMA reserves the rights to reassign prizes if deemed appropriate.

An invitation to expose yourself: How well does your inside match your outside?

By Marc Sokol
No, we are not talking about undergarments! But we are talking about what happens inside your organization that either helps or hinders the execution of your sales and marketing strategy.
This is a new guest blog for MNAMA. Each month we will take a brief look at the organizational dynamics that drive your team to success or that drive you to drink.
As a psychologist, I tune into what makes people tick and how people relate to each other. As an organizational consultant, I’ve helped teams and organizations recognize what it takes to make change happen, to become more effective, and to see just how easily companies become dysfunctional even when they have good intentions.
This is an opportunity for you to sound off, to ask your community what they think and what they would do. I’ll have an occasional opinion to share as well. So let’s get started!
First, a few questions:

• How well does the internal culture of your company match the brand message you share with customers? Does your inside mirror your outside?
• How well do the front-line employees of your business understand the marketing strategy? If you are on that front-line, do you get a clear message, a mixed message, or no message at all?
• How much latitude do you and others have to serve customers in ways that reinforce your brand and make a difference? (Or do you feel like passengers on the Titanic wondering which part of the ship will go down first!)
• When it comes to helping your company execute an effective sales and marketing strategy, what drives you crazy about the way your company is managed? How is the alignment between what they say vs. what they do?

If one or more of these questions strikes a chord with you, or if reading them absolutely makes your hair stand on end, then take two minutes and leave a comment.
It’s time to sound off!
Marc Sokol is an organizational psychologist with an eye for how people and teams can be more effective, even in a dysfunctional company. He is part of M Squared Group, a data-driven marketing consultancy.

The Wheaties FUEL™ Development Story - Part 2

By Ben Johnson

The Wheaties Team looks forward to welcoming AMA members to General Mills on April 13th! We are planning for a great discussion regarding the newest Breakfast of Champions^®, New Wheaties FUEL^™! If you haven’t checked out my previous post and the websiodes detailing the co-creation of new Wheaties FUEL with the likes of Albert Pujols, Kevin Garnett and Peyton Manning, take a look at webisode #2. In webisode #2, Dr. John Ivy has breakfast with the co-creation team members and discusses what they need from a breakfast cereal. The Wheaties Team broke the mold for traditional product development and allowed our team of co-creators to play a central role in the process.

Additionally, take a moment to check out the Wheaties Facebook Page to see what we are up to in the social media space. Take a moment to join-in on the day-to-day banter of champions at www.facebook.com/wheaties.

Ben Johnson is an Associate Marketing Manager for the Wheaties Brand at General Mills. Ben and his team will be presenting "The Evolution of an American Icon: The Wheaties FUEL^™ Development Story" at the upcoming MN AMA program on April 13, 2010.

The Wheaties FUEL™ Development Story

By Ben Johnson

New Wheaties FUEL^™ cereal -- created with the help of Peyton Manning, triathlete Hunter Kemper, Kevin Garnett, gold medal-winning decathlete Bryan Clay, Albert Pujols and sports nutritionist Dr. John Ivy -- is now available in retail stores across the country. Wheaties FUEL is a lightly sweetened, crunchy whole wheat flake with crispy rice and a touch of honey and cinnamon and it represents the evolution of the iconic 85-year-old Breakfast of Champions^®. Wheaties FUEL is the first-ever cereal designed to help meet the nutritional needs of today's athletes. Take a look at the first webisode, reviewing the unique Wheaties FUEL^™ co-creation process.

Ben Johnson is an Associate Marketing Manager for the Wheaties Brand at General Mills. Ben and his team will be presenting "The Evolution of an American Icon: The Wheaties FUEL^™ Development Story" at the upcoming MN AMA program on April 13, 2010.