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If you build it… five lessons NOT to learn from Field of Dreams

Sorry Ray, cheapest branding isn’t about dreams.

Over the last few days, sildenafil the Big Differ met three people building on big dreams — an underground railroad, a new coffee shop, and a political campaign. All have big obstacles to overcome, but they all have determination, skill, and a decent shot at success. Here are five lessons they should totally ignore from the 1989 film Field of Dreams.

Field of dreams

The problem with “Dreams”

For those sleeping in a cornfield through the 80’s, you can read a summary here, but basically, Field of Dreams is a fantasy about an Iowa corn farmer named Ray (Kevin Costner) who hears voices that inspire him to build a baseball park in his corn field, which attracts a team of ghostly baseball players, and it all ends in a magical success.  Hooray.

I actually liked the film a lot, and I have a soft spot for baseball, magic realism, and Kevin Costner films (or at least ones that don’t involve British accents or water).

But it’s a bad guidebook for entrepreneurs  trying to build a solid brand.

Bad lesson 1: the “field” isn’t important.

In the beginning, Ray’s a startup corn farmer – which is a sensible thing to be in Iowa. I’ve got relatives there, and it’s easily the highest-fructose place on the planet. Corn is his “field” of entrepreneurship. Ray also has a literal “field” – all those acres of rich topsoil, which, as a conscientious farmer, he should be tending, planting, and harvesting.

But he ignores both. Rather than figure out the techniques and habits that will make him successful in the corn field, Ray suddenly decides one day to get into the field of baseball instead. So he plows under his corn, builds a ball diamond, and then sits back and waits for magical success. In Iowa. The middle of Iowa.

The true lesson: don’t treat your field like dirt or it will do the same to you.

Bad lesson 2: ignore the rules of the field.

Every day, thousands of entrepreneurs worldwide do the same thing Ray did – they take a big risk and leave their established “fields” and strike out in a totally new direction. This is brave and inspiring. And yes, some happy few even succeed!

But you can’t just show up in a new industry and expect a standing ovation right away. Ray  tried to build his new field using corn field rules: he planted a baseball diamond in the spring and sat around waiting for a pennant harvest in the fall. You need to understand how to succeed and which rules need to be broken to stand out intelligently (that is, to not look stupid).

The truth: learn, respect, and adapt to the rules of whatever field you’re in.

Bad lesson 3: don’t tell anybody what you’re up to.

After Ray builds his diamond, he doesn’t bother to communicate – to market or position his product to anyone. He doesn’t even name his team or tell people about the single game that is supposed to miraculously save his farm.

In fact, he takes a pretty standoffish and arrogant approach to his target audience. Where is the scene where he buys a newspaper ad or where we see him sitting up at 3:00 a.m. sending out one more letter to another prospective fan?

The truth: communication is job one for all startups

Bad lesson 4: dreams are everything.

Sorry kids. Don’t mean to squash your Jiminy Cricket here, but  dreams are actually a dime a dozen – we have more than that every night. And most of them are wisely forgotten, ignored, or just recognized as really really dumb (like building a baseball diamond in an Iowa cornfield).

The truth: It’s hard work, commitment, and integrity (not dreams) that make success in any field.

Bad lesson 5: if you build it, they will come.

I can’t count the times I’ve heard this line repeated by startups or government clients. And it’s a seductive thought: if only we can build this perfect widget, the whole planet will see how amazing it is and come rushing to our door throwing money at us.

But it never works that way. It only seems to work that way, if you don’t know any better. The fact is, dreams are great. And stubbornly pursuing a dream is admirable. And everybody loves to believe in magic. But sadly, the “Field of Dreams” approach is a recipe for failure and disappointment.

Better to either a) stick to the corn, or b) if you must switch to baseball, sell your corn field and build your baseball diamond in a place, in a way, and with a team that give you a fighting chance. If your business plan includes ghosts, magic, and / or impossible amounts of luck to succeed, it’s not a plan. It’s not even a dream. It’s just a weird rustling noise in the corn.

The truth: If you build it, that’s when the real work begins

One of the many fine cartoons at Tom Fishburne.com
If you build it, you might want to ignore the obvious: one of the many fine cartoons at Tom Fishburne.com (click for more)

My double life: getting over “personal branding”

“I’m a slightly mad aristocrat and I’m okay with that”

In this Beg to Differ: a shocking personal revelation from the Big Differ, view who wonders if “Personal Branding” is too narrow to capture the range of authentic, and but playful, roles we play in our professional lives.

Yes, that's the Big Differ, DenVan, as the Captain of the Pinafore in 2006
Yes, that's DenVan as the Captain of the Pinafore with Meredith Matthews as Buttercup in Gilbert & Sullivan's HMS Pinafore at Centrepointe Theatre (Savoy Society of Ottawa).

Confession: I’m leading a double life

Yes it’s true. By day, I am indeed the mild mannered head of my brand strategy consulting company and the less-than-faithful blogger whose words you are reading right now (among other things).

By night, I am a slightly mad member of the British aristocracy – and I’m okay with that. I’m a Lord, a commander of troops, master of the Tower of London.  I oversee torture, beheadings, and a castle-full of sopranos. I find wives for dying men, support jesters on unicycles, drag rivers, and make sure Beefeaters stay off the bottle.

And that’s just this month. In the past decade, I’ve been a Japanese Lord High Executioner, the Prince of Darkness, the Captain of a warship,and a young Pirate apprentice.

Tough jobs all – and difficult to sum up on a resume.

Multiple personalities? Nope. Just one big ham.

As you’ve probably guessed by now, I’m either a) delusional, b) addicted to role-playing video games, or c) an amateur actor and singer. Although my wife might wish for an “all of the above” option, the answer is c).

Over the years, I’ve been lucky enough to land some fun roles with a couple of great local musical theatre and operetta companies. And on April 21, I’ll be hitting the stage again with a small lead in Yeomen of the Guard (see the promo video below for details).

It’s fun; it challenges me; I get to make an audience laugh (hopefully).

And in this role, I will try to be true to the character I am playing – to the playwright and director’s vision, to my fellow actors, to the audience.

But is “actor” my “personal brand”?

Um, kind of? It’s a role I sometimes play that lets me play other roles.

Yesterday, in a Twitter chat, the topic of “personal branding” came up again. And as always, somebody threw out the line that “personal brands need to be authentic!”

But if you accept that there can be such a thing as a “personal brand” (which I don’t) this idea of “authenticity” comes to mean the same thing as “personal integrity” which implies “you must always play the same role, because your brand is who you are”.

A brand is not a person, and it’s not personal

This is true for corporate brands, professional reputations, and it’s true for the roles we play in everyday life. Being an “authentic” dad is very different from being an “authentic” consultant, or being honest as an actor.

In Social Media we play many roles depending on the app we’re in or the nature of the conversation. Even within this blog, I’ve played different roles: advisor , critic,  jilted lover, and poet. And I’d like to think I was authentic in every case.

In the corporate and product realm, one company can support many brands with different “authentic” personalities. Procter & Gamble can “be” Mr. Clean, Dolce & Gabbana, and Pampers to different customers – as long as each brand is “authentic” within its own brand role and, most importantly, within the expectations they build for each customer.

The play’s the thing

  • A brand is a role you play for a group of customers.
  • “Play” is an important word here – branding is a game with rules, boundaries, and expected codes of behaviour, so yes, play with integrity and consistency.
  • But once you’ve established those boundaries, there’s incredible latitude for growth and creative movement.
  • When you’re on the field, be true to the game. But learn to keep the game on the field.
  • In your professional life, keep your “brand(s)” at arm’s-length from your “self”. Your customers will be happier, and you’ll be more helpful.

So what do you think?

5 ways Social Media is changing branding forever

Brand managers: Social Media is here to stay. Deal with it.

Beg to Differ gets asked three related questions all the time: should brand managers really care about this Social Media thing? Isn’t it just a flavour-of-the-month fad? Does it really change anything in the branding universe? The answers: Yes. No. Oh merciful heavens: YES! Here’s why.

Sea change: just another great turning point (Turner's Trafalgar)
Sea change: just another great turning point (Turner's Trafalgar)

1) Push marketing is dead (along with the other P’s)

Remember the old “Four P’s of Marketing” – Product, price Promotion, doctor Price, and Placement? They’re dead. Or rather, they all still play a role in marketing, but the big assumption behind them is dead – what I call the “Silent Fifth P”: PUSH.

It’s just not enough to buy a gazillion dollar ad on the SuperBowl and just watch your earnings roll in (although to be fair, it never really was). With the massive proliferation of content sources and the corresponding death of the old “big media” model, you just have to work harder today than you ever did before.

The trick for brand managers: learn to stop pushing and start listening to the real owners of your brand: your customers.

2) The owners are speaking; can you hear them?

Last month, Senior VP of Marketing Clyde Tuggle summarized the big lesson learned from the New Coke fiasco 25 years ago: “You don’t own your brand; your customers do.” (Great summary here).

If that was true then (and it was), it is painfully obvious now, as the owners of your brand have a louder and more sophisticated voice than ever. And when things go wrong for a brand like Toyota or United Airlines, you don’t have time for old fashioned PR damage control: these bad vibes are travel at the speed of human thought.

The trick for brand managers: make sure you are using Social Media to build a) communities of support and b) the capability to respond.

3) Crowd-sourced creative is changing the game

There is a lot of hand-wringing in traditional advertising and design circles about this stuff – witness this blow-up from our favourite brand design blog Brand New or the comments on this 2009 Beg to Differ post.

The dirty word being used here is “spec work” – that is, companies that should be able to pay a professional to do this stuff are instead using contests or other means to get creative work from a broader range of players. And while I’m a big believer in paying people for a good day’s work, I also think that the debate sounds a bit too much like the music industry going after 12-year olds who download MP3’s. It kind of misses the point.

The trick for brand managers: how can you use the power of crowd-sourcing (without burning too many bridges)?

4)  Open-source branding will change research

But the idea of  crowd-sourcing goes way beyond getting a logo from 99designs.com. It is actually changing the raw DNA of brands by throwing open the gates of the branding process to all interested members of the brand’s audience.

It’s similar to the Open Source movement in software – except the “code” being exposed is the values, character, and passions of your customers for your brand. (Great summary from Ryan Anderson here).

A couple of recent examples: this Google research cleverly packaged as a YouTube viral video, the A Brand for London project, or Fluevog.

The trick for brand managers: how can you tie open source ideas into your brand management routines? (Hint: call these guys for ideas).

5)      Humility is sexy again

Have you noticed the new tone in advertising lately – led by the newly humbled auto industry? It seems like companies are racing each other to out-humble each other. And that can only be a good thing.

The trick for brand managers: maybe it’s time to stop telling your customers how great you are. It doesn’t work on a first date, and it certainly doesn’t work in a relationship. The alternative? In the immortal words of Otis Redding: Try a Little Tenderness.

Um. Sorry world. How about “Share the Podium”?

A collection of the most influential diagrams explaining Social Media

After we needed to explain to a client (again) the difference between “Social Media” and Twitter or Facebook, site Beg to Differ went out looking for diagrams to show the range. And boy did we ever. The SlideShare deck below includes the 6 examples we found including entries from consulting heavyweights like Brian Solis and Robert Scoble…

Social Media: apparently it's pretty complicated...
Social Media: apparently it's pretty complicated...

But be warned: these diagrams are pretty geeky

So if you have a low tolerance for dense, for sale logo-heavy graphics with more than a smattering of techno-speak here are the take-aways:

  1. “Social Media” includes a huge and growing range of Web-driven conversation tools;
  2. As Social Media gets more diverse, see sub-genres are defining – and re-defining – themselves;
  3. There are many ways of viewing this universe; but
  4. There’s still a lot of noise… clarity is hard to find.
  5. But it is possible. See example #6 below.
Social Media "Explained" In 6 Pictures

Now that the Vancouver 2010 Olympics are over, generic
we take it all back

In which Beg to Differ eats crow on behalf of the whole nation of Canada, buy more about
and proposes 10 truly Canadian Vision Statements to replace Own the Podium.

Canadian Skeleton Gold medalist Jon Montgomery - by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images
How Canadian is this? Skeleton Gold medalist Jon Montgomery – by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images

Hey world, ailment

How’s it going? This is Canada here. And look, you know that whole “own the podium” thing? That thing where we 1) claimed we were going to kick butt in Vancouver 2010, and then 2) actually kicked butt by winning more gold medals than any country has ever won at an Olympic Winter Games – like, ever?

Well, that was totally rude of us.

I know, your athletes came to Canada hoping to win, but then you had to watch Canadians win, and win, and win. You wanted to hear your national anthems, but then you had to listen to ours over and over: you must have thought, “Oh Canada, here we go again”.

We know how that feels; we’ve been there (i.e. at every other Olympics).

And then, beating the Americans at ice hockey for gold not once, but twice… okay, we don’t take that back, but you get the picture.

And then the actual words: “Own the Podium”. Ah, that little three-word Vision statement. Did you know that was actually written by a government agency? Weird eh?

It set a simple, audacious goal that everyone clearly understood, and that we could hold the Canadian Olympic Committee accountable for. It was oddly bold, clear, even unapologetic.

Whoa, did we mention we’re sorry?

Seriously, that kind of cocky self-assurance was totally un-Canadian of us. We are SOOO sorry, and we’ll just go back to being Canadian again, eh?

So, in the spirit of re-capturing the old Canada you all knew, loved, and mostly ignored, here are:

10 possible replacements for “Own the Podium” that we think you’ll like better:

1 ) “Earn the podium.”

2 ) “Share the podium please.”

3 ) “Own the snow (except in Vancouver, where we’ll own the drizzle).”

4 ) “Owned the podium; but dude, you can have it back now.”

5 ) “Own any podium that involves pucks.”

6 ) “No matter how well we do, we will always suck at ski jumping.”

7 ) “Own the floor beside the podium where the 4th place finisher stands.”

8 ) “Own the bouquet, but donate the medals to poor American families who can’t get health care (sorry).”

9 ) “Own the right to collectively agonize, apologize, and fail to recognize those areas where we actually are awesome.”

10 ) “Un-the Podium” (in which we basically write a Vision statement that is more typical of a government program):

“Our Un-the-Podium Truly Canadian Vision: Continuously improve world-comparative indicators of success in a wide variety of fields of athletic endeavour, and demonstrate greater-than-incremental improvements across events using Target Excellence Peak Indicator Data (TEPID), as determined by Canadian Olympic Performance Optimization Utility Thresholds (COPOUTs).”

Whew, that feels much better.

Postscript: SARCASM INTENDED. Thanks world for an excellent two week party. Let’s try this again in a couple years okay?