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Beg to Differ

A brand strategy blog - by DenVan

Swiss secrets – how Switzerland builds brands

August 25, 2009 // Dennis Van Staalduinen 5 Comments

Those pesky Swiss are at it again. In a tongue-in cheek June post, stuff I ranted a bit about how I was mad at Switzerland for being so much better than my country Canada at building global brands. Well now my favourite brand strategy blog in the world brandchannel.com has taken up the cause with this piece. So here are 5 Swiss secrets that I’ll distill for you.
The Swiss success at branding isn't an accident. It's a culture that they cusltivate.
The Swiss success at branding isn't an accident. It seems to be a culture they cultivate. And you?

1. Sweat the small stuff. Think precision.

Tag heuer

A country can be a great brand. But it isn’t an accident. It takes careful work, pill discipline, and an attention to detail – think of a fine Rolex or Tag Heuer watch. Switzerland is tiny, but by carefully tuning and refining the little gears that run their brand image, they’re ensuring they’ll be winners for generations to come.

2. Refine the recipe. Make it intentional.

The Swiss have thought through all the ingredients of their brand, and the results are published in a fantastic brand manual that speaks for itself. And it’s right there online for the world to see. It is that sense of refinement and building on tradition with consistency that has bred great chocolate and food brands as Nestlé, Toblerone, and Lindt. Toblerone

3. Trust: the logo is just the tip of the Matterhorn

Trust is not spoken. It must be earned through consistent behaviour over time. You can’t just stick a Swiss flag on your product – even if you’re a Swiss company. The Swiss have very stringent rules and a continuing debate around what high level of quality constitutes “Swissness”. Which leads to better products and more trust, and more value for the Swiss trademark. It’s all tied together.

Swiss banks like UBS and Credit Suisse and indeed the whole Swiss financial industry have built their reputations around the brand promises of “stability, privacy and protection of clients’ assets and information“. This has led to recent wrestling matches over the personal information of US tax dodgers. But even if their hands are forced, the Swiss banks do fight tooth and nail for client privacy.

4. The three key tools of the Swiss brand

A great country brand is adaptable, sturdy, and practical. In the case of brand Switzerland, they are building their brand built around three key tools (“pillars” of their brand platform):knife

  • 1) Reality – the country’s real strengths and limitations, both in the sense of real business assets and liabilities, but also in terms of physical location, historical facts, shifting allegiances, and other tangible influences. 
  • 2) Existing perceptions – how the country is perceived abroad – for better and worse. The smart brander draws on positive themes that already exist in the minds of outsiders that only have to be tweaked, not created from scratch.
  • 3) Intangibles – positive, but subjective, forces driving the country’s brand like a track record of innovation; internal attitudes to themselves (and to change); and all the other internal brands that are already successfully trumpeting the idea of the country in the marketplace.

5. Apply the same logic to your brand.

Read those 3 pillars again, and insert “company” or “charity” or “government service” where it says “country”.  Then check out the brand manual linked above.

So ask yourself:How are you doing?

Is your brand running like a Swiss watch, as trusted as a Swiss Bank, as mouth-watering as fine chocolate, or are you just yodelling your customers’ time away on a mountaintop?

Filed Under: Brand Elements, Brand Standards, Brand Value, Branding Advice, Consumer product brands, Financial Brands, Place Brands, Positioning Tagged With: brand management, brand strategy, branding, country brand, Credit Suisse, Lindt, Place Brands, Rolex, Swirtzerland, Swiss, Tag Heuer, Toblerone, UBS

10 brand strategy lessons from “The Princess Bride”

August 24, 2009 // Dennis Van Staalduinen 21 Comments

A great post this morning on bladeronner.com (A Valuable Business Lesson from “The Princess Bride”) got me thinking: a) what a brilliant movie Princess Bride is; 2) how relevant the “Dread Pirate Roberts” idea is to branders; and 3) how many other lessons for us are hidden in this great film.

Fezik et al

Branding lesson 1:  Names matter.

 Westley: No one would surrender to the Dread Pirate Westley.

Making your business into a “Dread Pirate Roberts” is the subject dealt with in the blog post mentioned earlier. But in branding terms, treatment note that the intangible qualities of your name are very important to set the stage for your branding conversation with a customer – or to “inspire the appropriate terror” if that’s your objective.

Branding Lesson 2: Persistence Pays.

Inigo: Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.

HelloRepeat your brand promise to yourself over and over as a mantra. Craft the mission as a conversation starter, so a listener simply has to find out the story of your brand. And when it comes down to the final fight, have that mission on your lips as you ruthlessly carry it out.

Branding lesson 3: Got a miracle pill? Help your customers swallow it.

Inigo Montoya: That’s a miracle pill?
Valerie: The chocolate coating makes it go down easier.

It doesn’t matter how miraculous, how sexy, or how “game-changing” you think your product is. If customers don’t recognize it as such, you won’t sell a single unit. Learn what simple things you can add to your whole-brand package to help your customers “get it” as quickly as possible.

Branding lesson 4: Know their pain.

Man in Black: Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.

If you haven't seen the Princess Bride, get it; watch it; memorize.
If you haven't seen it, get it; watch it; memorize each line.
But remember that helpful chocolate coating in one market may look like manipulative “sugar coating” in another – and that looks like empty marketing hype and that’s a bad thing.

Keep it real. Use a straightforward tone of voice, and tell the truth. Don’t gloss over customer objections, customer hang-ups, or your own shortcomings. Customers are smart enough to know where the real pain is, and they’d prefer that it not be you.

Branding lesson 5: Building a strong brand takes time.

Miracle Max: You rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles.

You can’t cut corners. So even if the end result seems like a miracle pill to your customers, you have to patiently build your equity and their trust over time.

Branding lesson 6: Always a) expect the inconceivable and b) respect your competition.

Inigo Montoya: You are sure nobody’s follow’ us?
Vizzini: As I told you, it would be absolutely, totally, and in all other ways inconceivable…incidentally, why do you ask?
Inigo Montoya: (later in the scene) He’s right on top of us. I wonder if he is using the same wind we are using.

If you are in the lead in your market, congratulations. That’s great. But don’t get so cocky you forget to analyze what’s happening behind you. Otherwise, your competitors (who are also smart and dedicated) may “find a different wind”.

Branding Lesson 7:  Choose your words carefully.

Vizzini: HE DIDN’T FALL? INCONCEIVABLE.
Inigo Montoya: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

If you try to sound intelligent and savvy without also being a student of your customers’ language, you can quickly lose the respect you are trying so to win. Make sure you mean what you think you mean.

Branding lesson 8: Use the right strategy for the situation.

Inigo Montoya: You are using Bonetti’s Defense against me, eh?
Man in Black: I thought it fitting considering the rocky terrain.

Know your opponent and your terrain. But don’t get too set in your ways. Your opponent may only be pretending to be left handed, so if you have to switch, be flexible enough to do so quickly.

Branding lesson 9: Watch out for the R.O.U.S.’s

Buttercup: Westley, what about the R.O.U.S.’s?
Westley: Rodents Of Unusual Size? I don’t think they exist.
[Immediately, an R.O.U.S. attacks him]

Also highly recommended is the original novel.
Also highly recommended is the original novel.
Every industry has a few Rodents Of Unusual Size doesn’t it? And some more than others (no names here).

But beyond the obvious point about hidden dangers we choose not to see, the author of the original novel is having some fun here with our propensity for using jargonny abbreviations and acronyms – even when effective communication could mean the difference between life and death. Just call them Monster Rats and watch your back! (for more on this, see our July 31 post the 25 worst acronyms).

Branding lesson 10: Love conquers all

Buttercup: You can’t hurt me. Westley and I are joined by the bonds of love. And you cannot track that, not with a thousand bloodhounds, and you cannot break it, not with a thousand swords.

As the grandson in the movie might say, “yuck, is this a kissing blog?” But seriously. In human or brand relations, the bonds of human affection, attachment, and commitment are awsomely powerful forces. So if you’re looking for a happy ending for your brand, focus on building those real human links that will help you and your customers survive a thousand swords.

Bonus branding lesson: Have fun storming the castle!

Filed Under: Brand Elements, Brand Names, Brand Standards, Brand Value, Branding Advice, Logo, Message & Positioning Tagged With: acronyms, book, brand strategy, branding, Branding Advice, Buttercup, have fun storming the castle, Inigo Montoya, movie, prepare to die, Princess Bride, quotes, Westley, wisdom

Government abbreviations in one word: NOMO!

July 28, 2009 // Dennis Van Staalduinen 5 Comments

As an Ottawa naming and brand strategy consultant, order I once thought the technology industry was the world’s biggest offender in the realm of unhelpful abbreviations. But then I started working with the Canadian federal government…. alphabet soup everywhere. My answer in one word: NOMO!

NOMO

The problem with acronyms / abbreviations / initialisms / alphabet soup

So there it was: “Governments MIA when it comes to good acronyms” – one of my biggest PPPs (Personal Pet Peeves) being addressed right on the front page of yesterday’s Ottawa Citizen. The article is a useful introduction to the importance of, doctor and hair-pulling frustration involved with, sick unhelpful abbreviations and insider short-hand in government.

The article even shows awareness at the political level from the same party that once called itself CCRAP. But it doesn’t go far enough.

As a taxpayer, I’ve had enough trouble navigating my way through the small range of government services I actually use. But as a consultant whose job it is to help fix brand communication problems, I’ve been right in the middle of the tangled thicket of jargon and shorthand.

Client: Your CV is impressive: PMRA, TBS, PWGSC…
Me: Great! so we can work together?
Client: Maybe, but the DG and the ADM might RFP, so PMO, PCO, and TBS are Cc-ed. CRA, DND, and PHAC as well…
Me: Uh, right.
Client: So as an SME SP without SC…
Me: I’m SOL?

And that’s before we actually get to work. Once I do, my consulting task is usually to explain existing services and programs in plain language, as I’ve done with Public Works and Government Services Canada (TPSGC-PWGSC), Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS-SCT),  Health Canada Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA-ARLA), and others. But I can’t do that until I’ve gone through the lengthy process of myself figuring out the thing I’m supposed to be explaining, (so the PMBB isn’t the same as the NMAO?) and then making sure that my clients can in turn understand and explain it in the simplest possible terms – without shorthand.

At other times, I’ve actually had the joyous opportunity to name, or better yet un-name or re-name, a government entity. For example, a few years ago, I helped Industry Canada launch a new coast-to-coast service for business, which we called simply “Canada Business”. A boring name perhaps, but the intent couldn’t be plainer, and even better, doesn’t need to be abbreviated (“CanBiz” and “CB” were rejected early in the process).

Why the terms don’t help

But in trying to talk about this problem, the word “acronym” itself is one of the problems. So is“initialism”. So is “abbreviation”. I’ve tried sorting through this with a glossary at wordie.com. But I apologize if it’s still confusing.

And to technically-minded bureaucrats, these words have such specific definitions, and are so widely abused, that the debate always gets gleefully sidetracked into the debate over which term applies to which unhelpful short-form. Is FINTRAC an initialism? Is PHAC an acronym? Should we name our new program CANPAPHTHPT?

The average citizen says: “WTHC” (Who The Heck Cares)?

My modest proposal:

So I say we short-circuit the debate with one new word that describes the whole range of unwieldy shortenings:

NOMONYM: (NOUN) any unhelpful short-form, nickname, abbreviation, acronym, initialism, jargon, or insider buzz-term.

I created the word by (helpfully) abbreviating the phrase “NO More Obscure Nomenclature!” Although “NO-MOre-NYMs” works just as well.

In common usage, I recommend that this term be further shortened to “NOMO” and shouted loudly at government seminars, workshops, and brainstorming sessions.

Usage examples for “NOMO”:

  • Scenario 1: CRA needs a TTB from the WTH before you get an XYZ.
  • Response: all the people shout “NOMO!”
  • Scenario 2: government announces BPH moves RPHCAN to TLA.
  • Response: all the people shout “NOMO!”
  • Scenario 3: the DND/CF CEFCOM JTF-Afg and TFK BGen of ISAF, launches Operation ROOB, UNYIP, JANOOBI (I’m not making that up)
  • Response: all the people shout “NOMO!”

Use NOMO as a noun, a verb, an adjective, whatever you like. But shout it loudly, so it is heard throughout government boardrooms, corridors, brainstorming sessions – anywhere a NOMO might rear its ugly head.

And as the movement spreads, we go through the whole portfolio of government agencies, services, and terminology, weeding out NOMOs wherever we find them.

Perhaps then government can do the one thing that citizens need most:

C.O.M.M.U.N.I.C.A.T.E.

The whole NOMO series:

  • Part 1: NOMO unhelpful abbreviations in government
  • Part 2: an abbreviation is not a brand.
  • Brief: NOMO in the Ottawa Citizen
  • Part 3: a good acronym is hard to find
  • Part 4: the world’s 25 worst acronyms.

Filed Under: Analysis & review, Brand Names, Brand Standards, Brand Value, Branding Mistakes, Government Brands, Positioning, Product Portfolio Tagged With: abbreviations, acronyms, brand architecture, Brand Names, brand strategy, consult, Dennis Van Staalduinen, departments, government branding, government consultant, Health Canada, initialisms, NOMO, nomonym, Ottawa Citizen, PMRA, PWGSC, Rebranding, TBS

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