This Saturday, I had the privilege of photographing some of my favourite people from my favourite place in the world doing what they love to do. The event was the third annual Taste of Wellington West festival – when the food shops and restaurants of my neighbourhood in Ottawa give away free samples of thier food to benefit a local food bank. What could be better?

The challenge: You can lead a kid to sushi, but how do you make him try it?The answer: give it to him for free!

From a marketing perspective, of course, the idea of giving away free food is a guaranteed hit and a very smart stratgey. But what’s better, I see this as a practical example of a term Shel Israel introduced me to a couple weeks ago – first on Twitter, and later when he visited Ottawa to promote his book Twitterville: How Businesses Can Thrive in the New Global Neighborhoods.

“Lethal Generosity”

Here’s Israel’s own definition of this term from his Web site:

Shel Isreal: Lethal Generosity is the business strategy of doing as much good for your customer as possible, thereby screwing your competitor who has to either follow your lead or ignore programs that serve them.

Don’t you love that idea? Now, “lethal” and “screw your competitor” are hard-edged, cut-throat words. But they get your attention don’t they? In reality this is a “bad cop” way of describing a very “good cop” phenomenon. Because actually lethal generosity only works when you do it the way we do it in Wellington West: generosity comes first; lethality follows.

So here’s how I’d (humbly) alter Israel’s definition to put the emphasis on the strategic sequence of events:

Denvan: Lethal Generosity is 1) doing something warm, human, and generous that endears you deeply to your community, which 2) also has the pleasant side effect of giving you an incredible competitive advantage, 3) forcing others to either follow your lead or look really stupid.

Taste of Wellington West

Heavy construction didn't keep the huge crowds away in 2008 (shown here) or 2009.

A couple years ago, I helped out with the establishment of the Wellington West Business Improvement Area (BIA) – partially as a response to other local areas who had been running their own BIAs for years – particularly Westboro, Somerset Chinatown, and Preston Street.

What’s more, we were facing three years of heavy disruption from a massive and dirty construction project that would replace century-old sewer and water lines and make a wasteland of our street, and chase away customers.

So how do you compete with all that? Well, you build on your strengths. In our case, the incredibly warm and quirky characters who ran the shops and restaurants of our neighbourhood – who could always be counted on to give their time, money, and products to worthy local causes. But now they had a new weapon: a way to organize, mobilize, and capitalize on their native generosity to help them through a tough time.

The trick: to be more generous: 

The more you give, the more lethal you are. Absinthe gave away full sized gourmet Buffalo Burgers - resulting in longer lines.

Generosity, in the form of Taste of Wellington West, has helped us to bring thousands of new customers into our area at a time when most would rather stay away. And it allows locals a risk-free way of trying new places and meeting the humans behind those shops. I particularly love the picture of the kids trying the sushi. It really captures the spirit of the day: passionate merchants sharing their passions with people. 

But even more interesting, the merchants themselves have started to compete with each other to see who can out-generous whom. One high-end restaurant created waves by offering meal-sized Buffalo burgers, while another that had opted not to participate, had to reluctantly start giving stuff away. One of the employees told me: ”everybody’s asking where the free stuff is. It’s just easier this way.”

Slideshow of some people pictures from the day:

More pictures here (Picasa Web album of 130+ photos)

What I love about these pictures:

1) The warmth: I’d call these people the salt of the earth, but “spice of the city” is closer to home. Don’t those smiles just make you want to move to my neighbourhood?
2) The energy: these are always hard-working people, but for one day they double their workload to make magic in the process.
3) The variety: from the high end restaurant to the tiny family groceteria, everyone brought something different (and yummy) to the table.
4) The food: my biggest regret is being on the wrong side of the camera again this year! I get hungry all over again looking at these.

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.

Registration has just opened for the August edition of our successful Beg to DIFFER Brand Strategy Boot Camp – brought to you by the Ottawa Centre for Research and Innovation (OCRI) and Brandvelope Consulting.

Dennis fields questions at the last OCRI Beg to DIFFER Brand Strategy Bootcamp in May 2009.

Register here at the OCRI Web site.

This  boot camp is for all managers and executives with marketing, PR, or communication responsibility–whether in technology, government, not-for-profit, or other industries.  Basically, if you manage a brand and want to learn how to manage it for maximum connection and value (for your customers and for yourself) this boot camp is for you.

Date:

Thursday August 27, 2009

Location:

Nepean Sailing Club - 3259 Carling Avenue

Two Options:

OPTION 1: Half-Day Bootcamp – morning only

• 8:30 a.m. – 9:00 a.m. – Registration and Coffee
• 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. – Seminar 

OPTION 2: Full-Day Bootcamp

• Morning seminar (as above), plus:
• 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m. – Lunch\
• 1:00 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. – Hands-on Workshop

Why you should attend:

Reason 1: morning session

Morning Session provides theory, practical case studies, & tips

This seminar provides a great overview of three important topic areas for all Brand Managers:

Reason 2: afternoon workshop (only for full-day participants)

Afternoon workshop (available only to full-day bootcampers) is more interactive, and involves hands-on critique of your brand.

In this smaller-group setting, you’ll get a chance to apply the theory from the morning to your brand and get help from other participants and the workshop leaders.  The workshop will allow you to do a point-by-point inspection all the aspects of your brand. But note that the afternoon is for active participants only; be ready to give and take constructive feedback.

Reason 3: Take-aways

All participants will receive 1) Beg to DIFFER Brand Strategy Workbook  plus, full-day participants will also get 2) a personalized assesment of your brand strengths and challenges.

Reason 4: Beautiful setting

Nepean Sailing club is at 3259 Carling Avenue, just West of Andrew Haydon Park – only a short drive from downtown and Kanata. This venue offers stunning scenery and a relaxed atmosphere – we took the photo below from just outside the conference room. It’s the perfect place to spend a late August day gearing your brand up for the fall. Google Map here.

Boot Camp will be held at the beautiful Nepean Sailing Club - 3259 Carling Avenue on Lac Deschênes near Andrew Haydon Park

Reason 5: don’t take our word for it

“I thoroughly enjoyed the day and want to thank you and your colleagues for your efforts. I believe this seminar is a definite requirement in the Ottawa area and you have already put in place many of the cornerstones to build on to make this a truly awesome and interactive event for new and seasoned brand management professionals.”

Dan Chaput
Director, Marketing Communications
March Networks

Register here at the OCRI Web site.

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.

Last Saturday, my brother Brent and I ran and rode OC Transpo buses all over Ottawa. Along the way, we (over) acted in soap opera, skateboarded, played croquet, danced around stripper poles (no nudity involved – this year), and ate really, really gross stuff. Not a normal Saturday for us or the more than 900 other participants – but all part of the fun in the Ottawa edition of the Mitsubishi City Chase urban adventure series. Which got me thinking about brands. Surprised?

My brother Brent and I still looking fresh(ish) at the beginning of the day.

Modeled on the same idea as the “Amazing Race” reality TV show, the CityChase is positioned as a ”One-day Urban Adventure Challenge”. “Chasers” (as we’re called) are given a clue sheet at the outset, then have to choose between 10 challenges or “Chasepoints” spread throughout the city. And challenges can range from whitewater paddling to rapelling down a building to eating bugs or other stuff with a high “ick” factor. Chasers can only use foot-power or public transit, and are allowed to use cellphones or smartphones with no limit on the amount of help you can get. This is the third year Brent and I have entered, and it’s a riot.

But since this is a blog about brand strategy, I’ll offer a few thoughts on CityChase branding and marketing.

Brand elements that work:

The name. “CityChase” is a great name. It’s descriptive enough to give you a strong sense of what it’s about (“Chasing” around a city), but the unusual term “chase” lends it enough character to a) force you to think about / explain / start a conversation about it, b) create a memorable impression, c) act as a strong, ownable trademark, d) create natural insider language (GO CHASERS!), and d) lends itself well to sponsor extensions – Mitsubishi here, Samsung and National Geographic overseas.

The logo: like the name, simple, strong. The arrow icon won’t win any design awards, but its placement on the right side of the wordmark, along with the small opening on the right create just enough distinctiveness to allow the organizers to use it as a repeated design element (as in the shirts above).

The sponsors: because it appeals to young, fit urban types 25-45 years old, and because the whole day is about combining fitness, fun, and technology, there are a huge range of opportunities to highlight sponsors in a way that doesn’t seem forced or unnatural. And do I fee better and more in tune with the Mitsubishi and BlackBerry brands after spending a day with them? Yeah. I do. 

Local exposure: but even better, because the Chase sends us out into urban retail areas, small local brands are able to highlight themselves and draw new people in. Would I normally walk into a Strip Fitness studio? Not on your life. Will I tell my friends about it? You bet.

The promise: It has been summed up by organizers as “you can expect a day of adventure”. And indeed, that’s what we get year after year. For the more competetive, it’s about moving fast, mapping a route, and strategizing. For the average Chaser, it’s about getting out and pushing the boundaries – testing yourself in different ways.

Brand elements that need attention:

Web site & social media: For a brand that’s built for a high-tech savvy audience, the Web site is pretty clunky, and the Social Media efforts are getting better, but need to be better coordinated as part of the experience. For example, while there are 1100 members of the relatively active  MCC Facebook fan site, on Twitter, @citychase has only 215 followers. Why? Because a) they don’t follow anyone back, b) they only use it as a “mesage blast” medium, not as a conversation among co-enthusiasts, and c) they don’t use the opportunity to live tweet or hold CityChase themed TweetUps between events. 

Logistics: two years in a row, after waiting several days for the results online, my brother and I have had our ranking assigned to other people. Last year we were 11th, and this year 12th, so we’d love to send the link to friends and family (and further extend the brand!), but this looks like we didn’t finish. We’re coming back next year, but these kinds of problems make it difficult to be unqualified in our praise.

I need to be less clumsy: I think the annotated picture below says sit all.

News item from last year in Philly – does a good job of explaining the Chase.

Signage and store design nicely blend warm colours with very contemporary elements. The stores fit equally well into old stone heritage buildings or brand new condo buildings (as here).

Coffeeshop manager Mia Eriksson and Bridgehead chain owner and my local brand hero Tracey Clarke (yes that's a box of subway tiles she's slogging).

1. 1. Great product consistently delivered - yes it’s fairly traded, organic, and shade grown, but Bridgehead puts great care into the quality, variety, and freshness of the product. The rest of my top ten list would matter not a bit if the beverages, treats, and lunch items weren’t top notch. They are.

Oh, and on the innovation front, BH managed to scoop Starbucks on the custom coffee front. Just as the Seattle mega-java purveyors were buying the Clover company  BH was able to get a small number of the uber sexy Clover Machines before Starbucks stopped selling to cometitors.As a result, Ottawa coffee lovers will get to taste Clover coffee years before Starbucks ever brings the technology to its Canadian stores.  Wired.com reviews the Clover. 

2. Great cause(s) – Tracey Clarke got into the coffee business after visiting Central America in the 80′s and realizing that the local people were producing incredible coffee, but they couldn’t get any of it because of a) export monopolies, b) prohibitive prices, and c) shamefully low prices for their beans. She and a partner bought the original Bridgehead brand from a well-meaning charity that was way over its head trying to run even one  retail store, then turned it around, and in a few short years has become the quality coffee brand in Ottawa.

3. Local brand – I’m an Ottawa boy. They are an Ottawa-based chain; the money stays in town. All good.

4. Committed to walkable urban neighbourhoods – despite the obvious pull from suburban areas, there are no drive-thru windows at any Bridgehead (yet). The chain has continued to place its new locations in traditional main-street areas throughout Ottawa, and as a founder of the Welling ton West BIA, I can tell you they have been very supportive and active in street-level retail initatives and issues.

5. Really nice people – the founders are level-headed, approachable folks, and their approach has attracted strong staff in the stores. Employees tend to be older, better educated, and “hipper” than in the other shops around town.

Here's me at the new Bridgehead withthe first cup of coffee served to an outsider and the all-important first Internet ticket.

6. Great spaces - real attention to the usability of space. Nice blend of lounging, working, and conversation spaces, Bridgehead has been refining the blend with each new store they build, creating a noticeably more “human” place than the average Starbucks or Second Cup.

7. Family friendly – because of the demographics of many of their host neighbourhoods (and fact that most of  the management have young children), they’ve proven much more open to non-coffee drinkers in the stroller set, plus toddlers and school-aged children. Creates a lot of noise at times, but on the weekends, my kids love to visit.

8. Business-friendly – after some wrestling over the prevalence of laptop “campers” in some early stores, Bridgehead has struck a nice balance between open areas and places to plug in, and free wireless with a one-hour limit. 

9. Strong retail branding – their online and social-networking presence could use some definite work, but in terms of creating a brand experience outside and inside their stores, they are hard to beat. This is due to the active involvement of the founders in every aspect of store design, so it will inevitably become increasingly challenging to sustain as they grow further without more formal “policy” work. But the fundamentals are very strong.

10. NO ADVERTISING(!) – this may sound strange on a “branding” blog, but remember this site is about brand strategy, not advertising, so I don’t make my money from media buys or column inches purchased. Bridgehead has managed to accomplish all of the above without spending a penny on traditional advertising. Again, this may have to change as they grow, but by reaching out through social-justice oriented circles, supporting like-minded causes, lots of “in-kind” community contributions, and to reitierate, being incredibly smart about their product and retail fundamentals,  they have succeeded by DIFFERING not by TELLING people they were different.