The first Beg to Differ Branding Field Trip.

Last week, I blogged on Beg to Differ about the birth of my son. Thank you all for your best wishes and brilliant thoughts on this incredibly moving experience for my wife and other two kids. But on the silly side of my brain, the whole 3 days in the hospital, I had lines from the classic “Machine that goes Ping” sketch from Monty Python’s the Meaning of Life going through my head. And I was struck by how heavily branded the hospital environment is. So here are a few branding “pings” from the life and death world of the hospital.

The machine that goes Ping - The Miracle of Birth scene from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life

Something completely different

I think Branders need to be students of branding trends, and have a big streak of geekiness. And it’s always best to look at branding practices from an outsider’s perspective. So as a non-medical guy, all these brands were new to me. A few random comments are below.

There’s a surprisingly hard-sell retro throwback feel to a lot of these product names. And in the case of the “V-LOK CUFF” a design style that looks like it came out of the back of a comic book.

Interesting story: at one point, a nurse was putting an intravenous drip into my wife’s arm and asked me to grab what she called an “eye-hand” from the cupboard. I couldn’t find it until she held up a package and I realized she was talking about the “IV3000 1-HAND” above. In our case, the misunderstanding wasn’t serious, but I wonder if that little brand misunderstanding has ever led to more serious consequences. Branding matters!

In a “serious” environment like a hospital, I’d expect muted, understated brand practices – heavy descriptive names and generic product numbers. But I was surprised how many of the product brands seemed to be using edgy or aggressive naming conventions. Notice a small sample of all the “X’s I found in brand names.

I especially like the “Stryker” beds I saw everywhere. Doesn’t that sound like the name of a hero from a cheesey pulp fiction thriller?

In the delivery room, the doctors and medical staff were giddy with excitement to try the  ”Rollbord” (above) which some were trying for the first time. I noticed that they didn’t call it a “SAMARIT” or even a “Samarit Rollbord” – even though the names are presented graphically at the same size. “Rollbord” is the dominant brand because it’s more useful.

This confused me. In the age of H1N1, I was diligently keeping my hands washed, and when I couldn’t, I would Purell them (note the verb).  But the distributor of the hand-pumps above obviously tried to standardize the look and feel of the labels, even though they are different brands (and add French for a Canadian audience). The result? I kept reaching for the Purell when I needed soap and vice versa. In this case, the manufacturer’s branding would have been more useful.

What do you think?

Beg to Differ wants to hear from you:

• Any thoughts on these brands? What other branding trends do you see?
• Any perspectives on other medical industry brands?
• Do you like the branding field trip idea? Thoughts on other field trips we can take?
• Volunteers to lead guest expeditions?

Part 3 of our series on our favourite posts of 2009″

October and November held a few more pleasant surprises for us here at Beg to Differ – from our Chicken Sandwich series to our first Slideshare cross-over hit, to  a Seussian Twitter phenomena, we continue to be surprised by the enthuisiastic response of our readers – but almosrt never in ways we expect.

What if restaurants charged like creative agencies? The other side

The branding business: we haven’t have a lot of posts about this topic area… yet. But we felt we needed to respond to a viral video which lampooned clients for not “getting” the value of the work creative agencies do. After all, it takes two to tango – or quibble over a giant invoice.

More on the biz: when branding, look outside;

How to name a chicken sandwich: thoughts for branders

Brand naming: When KFC launched a new chicken sandwich with a name developed by Brandvelope, we took the opportunity to toot our own horn a bit and talk about the process of naming a brand. And the results: our biggest single day tally of visitors as branders came by for a taste of what we do.

More on names:Sorry Shakespeare: names matter;  brandscape – a chicken or egg?

American Airlines meets Mr. X – a tragic tale of brand failure

“Whole brand” thinking: This short post on the failure of a giant corporation to understand  effective customer engagement in the social media era marked the first time a SlideShare deck  of ours reached 2000 hits – and climbing (in response to a tip from  Alison Gresik).

More on this:Toronto Web site fail; Human in five steps; the perils of too much choice; one immutable law

Green eggs & spam: a Twitter poem

Social media: Funny to talk about this one as a greatest hit – because we wrote it in the middle of the current “faves” series – and it’s really still going with more than 100 RTs to date. Basically, we wondered a) what @SamEyeEm would be like on Twitter, and b) what Dr. Seuss might think about the new “ReTweet” feature on Twitter.

More on this topic: Twiterloo; branding explained in Twitterese; “Social Media” needs a new name.

More in this series:

• Tuesday: Beg to Differ highlights from June & July
• Wednesday: Beg to Differ highlights from August & September.
• Thursday: Beg to Differ highlights from October & November (this post).

Oh, and another reminder: please sign up for e-mail updates (on the right) or our RSS feed, so you keep track of our future posts.

Are we really the brand we drive?

A few minutes ago, while I was driving home from my son’s daycare Halloween parade (and yes, he wore his bat costume again) I got cut off on the road by an aggressive jerk. Weaving in and out of traffic, speeding, talking on a cell phone, throwing a smoking cigarette out the window – you know the kind. But now that I’ve described him, what kind of car do you picture him driving?

Chances are, this isn't what you're picturing (Photo from the Flickr stream of cornillious).

It was a Smart Car

That’s right, this jerk wasn’t driving an over-sized SUV, an expensive look-at-me luxury roadster, a rusted muscle car, or his mom’s minivan – any of which might have popped into your mind when I said “a jerk cut me off”. Well shame on you for being so narrow minded!

This jerk was creating dangerous road situations in a a cute little, enviro-friendly, fuel-sipping, tree-embracing Smart Car! And when I saw it, a little part of my brain popped. It seemed like an oxymoron, like a Ferrari doing the speed limit, or a Harley with a muffler.

But why should that surprise anyone?

Think about your preconceptions of Smart Car drivers for a moment.  Now think about how those perceptions of the people are shaped by the car’s design, the current global warming “zeitgeist”, the smart growth movement, and of course by the Smart brand with its perfect name and focused line of extensions.

The thing that went “pop” in my mind was betrayal: this jerk was knocking down my positive stereotypes of Smart Car drivers, and I resented that.

Now think about your brand

Ask your self a few questions:

• What preconceptions and stereotypes are built in to your product when people buy it?
• Are these expectations positive or negative for your brand image and values?
• Are the people “driving” your brand living up to the positive expectations?
• If they’re not, is your brand strong enough to make the odd jerk look like the exception rather than the rule?

In this case, my mental image of Smart Cars survived the encounter, and this jerk even made my affection for Smart a bit stronger since part of my indignation was on behalf of the brand – as in “how dare you do that to something I treasure!”

Smart branders know their tribes and cultivate them with carefully tuned messages. The tag line from freecountry.harley-davidson.com says it all: "Screw it. Let's ride."

Guy Laliberté has always had his head among the stars. But all this week, the French-Canadian founder of Cirque du Soleil – and #562 on the Forbes list of wealthiest people – is actually circling the earth as a paid tourist aboard the International Space Station. And true to form, he’s using the opportunity to do a bit of “over-the-top” showmanship. Unfortunately, Laliberté didn’t match his lofty ambitions with the same sophistication, taste, and branding savvy he’s usually shown on Earth. Maybe it’s the lack of oxygen…

In space, nobody can hear your eyes rolling: Here's Laliberté sitting in the coolest place any human could ever be, with three very lame words on his shirt.

The event: stars will align tomorrow night

On Friday, October 9th at 8:00 p.m. (Eastern Standard Time) Laliberté will be hosting a Webcast from space in support of his ONE DROP Foundation.

You can find out more details about the event and performers here.

But in brief, the Webcast will pull together material from 14 cities around the world, and feature contributions from such luminaries as Al Gore, David Suzuki, and Salma Hayek, as well as performances by U2, Shakira, and, wait for it… Guy Laliberté himself performing from the International Space Station.

However, much to the disappointment of Cirque fans around the planet, he won’t be stiltwalking, eating fire, or even playing accordion (which, unlike terrestrial billionaires, he can actually do).

He’ll be reading poetry.

And you thought there was no gravity in space!

Before we get too critical, let it be known we think the cause he’s supporting is a great one.

This is what the event Web site says about the purpose of his mission (and we’ll ignore the clunky copy writing for the moment):

Laliberté’s mission in space is dedicated to making an impact on how water, our most precious resource, is protected and shared. And he will be applying tools he has used so well for most of his life to bring about change: arts and culture.

Information about our world’s water-related issues will be conveyed using a singular poetic approach. The messages he will transmit from the ISS will build awareness for ONE DROP Foundation initiatives, its objectives and dream of “Water for all, all for water.”

Good on you Guy, for using your media exposure for a good cause. We at Beg to Differ envy and admire your incredible  chutzpah for reaching so high in pulling all this together.

But sad to say, there’s a “leak in the capsule” on this one.

See if you can find the problem in the image below:

Houston (Montreal, Moscow, etc.), we have a problem:

One of the dumbest, most pretentious names ever.

And the event’s subtitle doesn’t help: “Moving Stars and Earth for Water”.

Sorry Guy. It’s awkward in English. It’s pointless in French. It’s self-defeating as a brand strategy. And it’s totally counter to the taste and sophistication you’ve always applied to Cirque.

And worst of all, it focuses away from the parts of your mission that are really cool and worthy of attention:

• Clean Water for earth! The wonder of space travel! A circus guy in space!

Instead it focuses on the lame (and painfully self-indulgent) parts of the picture:

• Poetry reading! That mushy word “social”! Our sneaking suspicion that this may have more to do with your ego than water!

So Guy, next time you go to space, call me okay?

A branding expert could help you figure this stuff out before you blow millions of dollars making it all look like one big vanity project … or maybe at least help you make it look less like one.

One easy approach I would have suggested would be to call this whole project the “ONE DROP Clean Water for Earth Mission” and focused all your energies on building that one brand.

But that’s just one way we could have approached this. So seriously Guy. Call me next time. You can reach me here.

Bonus: Guy Laliberté video-blogs from space

Next week, on Thursday August 27, we’ll be holding another Beg to DIFFER Brand Strategy Boot Camp in Ottawa with partners the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation (OCRI)and Brandvelope Consulting. As part of the Camp, we’ll be dealing with the 4 Big Questions of Branding – the four fundamental things humans need to know about any product as they build their mental picture of it. You’ll find a preview of Question #1 below in SlideShare format.

Discount on Boot Camp registration for Beg to DIFFER readers.
For those interested in attending our Ottawa Brand Strategy Boot Camp, scroll down to find out more.

The 1st Big Question of Branding:

More about Boot Camp:

Blog Post: 5 Reasons to Attend the Beg to DIFFER Brand Strategy Boot Camp
Info from OCRI: OCRI Event Page

Discount on Boot Camp registration for Beg to DIFFER readers.
For those interested in attending Boot Camp, we’re offering a special discount for readers of this blog. To claim your discount:
1) Click through the presentation above: (1st Big Question of Branding)
2) Register for Boot Camp.
3) When registering, quote the name of the mystery product used as an example in the presentation below and you’ll receive $25 off the price of either half day or full day Boot Camp.
4) If you want to invite a colleague or recommend this to someone else, please do! They’ll also qualify for the discounted price.

Quick registration links (provided by OCRI):

Register Online | Register by Fax | Add to your Outlook* (Half-Day) | Add to your Outlook* (Full-Day)

Since writing the 25 meaningless tag lines post, and tag lines need to help people we’ve been getting numerous tips for tag lines that are worse, and I’ve been spying bad ones all over my marketing-savvy city of Toronto. So, here’s round two of meaningless taglines. Pat yourselves on the back – most of them came from you!

The signage of Toronto

Welcome to Toronto: We’ve been expecting you
Either this is a meaningless tag line, or Toronto is claiming to be the city that knows where you are and where you’re going! Creepy! Oh, and the garbage is cleaned up by now… I have to admit I didn’t snap this one, it came from Vice Magazine, but they seem to be on every garbage can and bus shelter.

Flowers on Bay: Express in colors, whisper with fragrance
I’ll do the whispering, you do the flowers. And please, at least spell ‘colours’ correctly.

Brad J. Lamb Realty: Miles above the competition
Okay Brad, you can either be a Lamb or an astronaut, not both. Pop quiz: which tag / brand is worse? The lamb in space or the guy in a kilt?

A few from the world of spinning rubber

Did I mix up the company names? How would you ever know? Sure, you’re stuck with your father’s father’s grandfather’s name as a brand, but at least make an attempt to DIFFER!

Bridgestone: Passion for excellence.

Firestone: A tradition of innovation.

Michelin: A better way forward.

Goodyear: Get there.

Energy companies…

…that think they are hospital foundations. These are courtesy of Nancy Friedman – please check her blog for the full list!

Miles of experience. Miles of opportunity.

We work with care.

More citybrands

Bad, yes, but they are at least specific to their locations. The first is an ever-so-subtle allusion to Ottawa’s technology backbone, and the other, well, the other says Toronto right in the name, silly! Thanks to Justin Young for these.

Ottawa: Technically beautiful.

Toronto: Toronto unlimited.

Sports teams

NHL teams are not very good at marketing themselves. They are lucky to have a product that people want regardless of how it is sold. “A rose by any other name…” See the NHL tagline quiz here: match your team with your team’s tag!

Carolina Hurricanes: Our team. Our tradition.

Toronto Maple Leafs: Spirit is everything.

We’ve compiled a list of the 25 worst acronyms, and yesterday we showed you that tag lines need to help people. We’ve also covered more municipal tag lines and other local examples. But now, here’s a list of 25 useless tag lines from brands that should know better.

The city of Stratford Ontario felt compelled to put a random bunch of words on the top of their Web site. We're not sure why...

25 useless taglines

Note: most of these are old – taken from a previous stage in the life of these companies – but all are real as far as we can tell. Please feel free to provide a more current list from brands you may know, and we’ll do another round later.

1. Ames Rubber: Excellence through total quality.
This tag is the ideal example of the “space filler” tag line. Just read it slowly and think about these words. It sounds like it’s supposed to mean something, but when you get right down to it, it’s an empty claim that any company could make about any product.

2. Denny’s: A good place to sit and eat.
Maybe you could use this in a market where people didn’t know that Denny’s was a restaurant? Like Mars?

3. Exxon: We’re Exxon.
Arguing with the simple blunt truth of this would be like denying the reality of a rocky shoreline in Alaska. Although to be fair, the rocks at least had a point.

4. Mobil: We want you to live.
Oh thank heaven. I’m so tired of gas stations that wish death upon me.

5. Holiday Inn: Pleasing people the world over.
“Pleasing people” and “the world over” are pleasant but empty phrases. “Making the world smile” wouldn’t be a great tag, but at least it would provide an image in the mind.

6. Jimmy Dean: Eat Jimmy Dean
Wrong on so many levels – particularly for those of us who think (wrongly) that this brand was named after a dead film star. But we can’t say it’s not memorable.

7. Playtex: Is that a Playtex under there?
This one conjures up a clear sensory image: the image of someone getting smacked hard. And deserving it.

8. Singer: We make it better.
Better than what? What is “it”? And why are you better?

9. ChevronTexaco: Turning partnership into energy.
That’s not true. Energy comes from oil. Dirty, dirty oil. Seriously, it’s great that you merged your companies, but try focusing on your customers.

10. Chrysler: Inspiration comes standard.
Not with my Neon it didn’t… please see Chapter 11 for more on this.

11. E.F. Hutton: When EFHutton talks, people listen.
Never liked this one – and not just because a) the company imploded in a blaze of scandal and b) corny commercials like the one below from the 80s.

Here’s a better ad with Bill Cosby and a much stronger tag line: EF Hutton – “Because it’s my money”.

12. Hallmark: When you care enough to send the very best.
Empty words + guilt trip = Hallmark. Not to mention if you actually cared, you’d make your own. But that’s beside the point.

13. National Cattlemen’s Beef: Beef. It’s what’s for dinner.
How presumptuous of you! You simply stated a fact that you assume to be true, and it’s not even appetizing.

14. Petco: Where the pets go.
Yes. I got that much from your name. Now, tell me more…

15. Quaker Oatmeal: Something to smile about.
I smile about a lot of things. Oatmeal is not one of them.

16. Toshiba: Choose freedom.
I would love to meet the consumer research team that told Toshiba that what their customers are looking for when buying a personal computer is “freedom”.

17. Verizon Wireless: We never stop working for you.
“Your call is very important to us, please stay on the line. We never stop working for you. Your call is very important to us, please…”

18. Zenith: The quality goes in before the name goes on.
See, our competitors put the name on first, then they put the quality in. It just doesn’t work that way.

19. Citibank: Where money lives.
Like a bed and breakfast? Or more of an apartment style?

20. Carlton Cigarettes: If you smoke, please smoke Carlton.
I can’t stop thinking that this must be a Canadian cigarette company – we’d never force you to smoke because its bad for you. But if you do, you might as well smoke ours!

Honorable mentions — the airline industry:

Airlines have been around for a long long time. You can no longer differentiate from your competition by saying, “We fly!”

21. British Airways: The way to fly.

22. Western Airlines: The only way to fly.

23. United Airlines: Time to fly.

24. Delta Airlines: We get you there.

25. Korean Air: Excellence in flight.

• Sources:
  www.chomchomadvertising.com
  www.taglineguru.com
  www.textart.ru

For more on useless taglines and how to do better, see yesterday’s post: Tag lines: if they don’t help people, there’s no point.

When I was in Korea a few years back, I was struck that even in cities where very few people spoke English, “upscale” stores always had an English tagline under an English name. But the words didn’t seem to matter: most were incomprehensible, vague, or with uninteded double entendres (as below). Weirdly, these businesses seemed to have taglines simply for the sake of filling space under their name with letters, not because anyone would get information from them. You know what’s even weirder? It happens here too.

For this Korean tag line, you can at least tell what they were going for. But are they really offering both those services?

A global plague:

Lest we seem to be picking on obscure stores in non-English speaking countries, a couple of weeks ago, we pointed out this tagline from a local real estate agent - and we could have chosen many more from that industry alone.

And size of company doesn’t seem to matter. Check out this bit of tagline vapidity from a major international brand – spotted in July 2009. “Sychronizing the world of commerce” is actually less meaningful than “Fitting & Feeling” – and I imagine UPS has a few more people working on their materials than Teman.

Another space-filler tagline - UPS fails to deliver.

Say something nice… or say nothing at all

Another uncomfortable tagline from a Korean store - but it just looks right to have one doesn't it?

Or rather, just say something useful.
Like every other aspect of your brand, a tag line is supposed to be a tool to help people understand something about your brand - some aspect of your service that will help them make a purchase decision in your favour.

A good tag line needs to inform me or help me differentiate you from your competitors; maybe it will make a leadership claim or offer me a guarantee; at the very least it should give me a clever “hook” to remenber you by; otherwise it’s just filling a space.

Here’s a secret that should never have to be spoken: a tag line isn’t a design element. It’s actually a set of words that happen to be occupying  prime real estate on your sign, page, or Web site. So make sure they ”pay their rent” by actually doing useful things.

After our criticism of Toronto’s Web site, and some garbage-scented barbs thrown their way in last week’s Brand Jam, it looks like Tourism Toronto has decided to approach the end of the garbage strike with their tongues firmly in their cheeks and their noses in the air.

The just-announced tag for a late summer advertising campaign – wait for it:

“Toronto never smelled so good.”

  The original article I saw on this is quoted here:

Toronto Star article: The whiff of opportunity for Tourism Toronto: When you attract attention for all the wrong reasons, you might as well try to play it for a laugh. That’s the thinking behind a new promotion launched today by Tourism Toronto with the slogan “Toronto never smelled so good.”

Now, to me, this looked like a “fresh” approach to a thorny problem: how to put a positive and even humourous spin on a negative situation. So I gave them the benefit of ther doubt, and whatever the ramifications, I have to admire the guts of the Toronto Tourism folks:

Metro: Slogan smells ‘so good’“We’re going to take the strike head-on, and use it as an opportunity to invite people back,” Weir said. “It’s been top of the newscasts for the last 40 days. The best thing we can do is let them know the experience here is as high-quality and exciting as it’s ever been — and now there’s no garbage piled up.”

- Andrew Weir, vice-president of Tourism Toronto

But in coverage on CBC radio in Ottawa last night, our drive-home host Adrian Harewood talked about the slogan, and spent several minutes of air time chatting with newsman Lawrence Wall about it. The focus of the conversation: Is it true?

Apparently, many Toronto parks and public spaces still smell fairly pungent after being used as dumps. Reaction from some Torontonians has been even more pointed:

24 Hours: Does Toronto smell good to you? Toronto never smelled so good. Really? You sure about that? Pretty certain it stank like rotting landfill on my way in to work yesterday.

Like an old horn-dog perched at a local watering hole ogling young waitresses, the post-strike branding has the distinct smell of desperation, which is as off-putting as bad breath, really.

So while it’s an attention-getting (and brave) approach, the problem with this slogan is not that it isn’t effective: 1) it’s not true; 2) it can be seen as making light of a serious and divisive issue in the city, and 3) raises questions that actually focus more attention on something that tourists don’t want to think about.

Should be interesting to see the reaction as this unfolds.

Live Twitter Feeds about the strike

Differentiation is good. Very very good. I made the point in my post about the Ottawa Shawarma scene that in a crowded, undifferentiated marketplace, finding a catchy gimmick is a great way to get people to remember you. This unfortunately is the other side of the “personal branding” coin.

Yes, I noticed it. Yes, I remembered it. But no, I’m not going to buy a house from you my Scottish friend.

A good tag line should do at leat one of the following a) tell me what you do if I don’t already know, b) tell me how you do your thing better than anyone else, and / or c) make an emotional connection to show me how “sympatico” you are with me - how you think like I do about your subject area. 
This one does none of those things.

5 Reasons this tag line won’t get me to hire the guy in the kilt:

1) It doesn’t tell me what you do for me.  The tag line doesn’t tell me anything about your business – and mine. How well / differently do you do what you want me to hire you to do: buy or sell property? Kilt does not equal real estate excellence in my mind. Sorry.

2) It’s all about you. There are perhaps a few large egos in the Real Estate business, and this one makes me suspect you might be among them. If you’re not, show me that by not focusing your ad entirely on yourself. If you are, just save your money and commission a statue of yourself in your back yard. Maybe a little shrine.

3) I don’t want to see you in a kilt. I would be incredibly uncomfortable meeting you in person – especially if you were actually wearing a kilt. Don’t get me wrong, a kilt can be very classy at a wedding or a military Tattoo. But it’s an eccentric thing – kind of like telling people you are a closet Klingon speaker or always wear socks with fish on them. You’ll get remembered, but it doesn’t build your brand.

4) There is such a thing as bad publicity / attention / memorable-ness. While I was taking this picture, a random passer-by laughed out loud at the ad. And not in a “ha ha that’s so clever I want to by a house from him” kind of way. Enough said.

5) My wife is a MacDonald. Apparently there’s some kind of ancient blood feud. Something about your ancestors murdering a bunch of her ancestors in their sleep. Sorry. Nothing personal. But you did bring up the ethnic thing.