When things happen to me in threes, I take notice. I recently had three different experiences where my perception of a brand was lifted. (Evidently being a brand expert does not make me immune to the “mind control” brands employ.) While all three of my experiences just happened to be with car brands, the “halo effect” works just as well for AEC brands.
The Halo Effect Defined
This brand building strategy is accomplished by aligning your brand (brand a) with a very shiny person, place, event or other brand (brand b). The luminosity of brand b is so great that it casts a favorable glow onto your brand. The Halo Effect is a clever way to elevate the perception of your brand through association. Think Dr. Oz being launched by à¼ber-luminous Oprah, and you get it.
Leverage The Best of Your Community
My first halo effect experience was at a party that my friends Dave Brown and Zack Nielsen threw. They had an enviable project of spending Ford’s money to promote the Ford Fiesta. Ford gave them a car, cash, creative tools, and instructions to simply talk about the Fiesta. One of Dave and Zack’s brilliant solutions was to tap into their own creative community and throw a party at a cool location with great music and people. The event included a few hipster retailers creating pop-up stores within the party. I never would have paid a second look to the Ford Fiesta, but, as I was leaving the party, I glanced at the strategically parked car thinking to myself, “that’s a pretty cool little ride.” They got to me. I felt punk’d, but in a good way.
Associate Your Brand with Impeccable Quality
Full Disclosure: I own a Honda Element which was mostly a practical decision based on the functionality of being able to insert my dog, surfboard and wife’s Prius (nearly) into the back of the car. Even after buying the car, I wasn’t a Honda fan until after being introduced to a series of short documentary films called Dream The Impossible. The film’s universal themes in Failure: The Secret to Success and Racing Against Time move me on an emotional level. I also appreciate that while the films were commissioned by Honda, they are not about cars. Using quality imagery, music and story telling, the films are so beautifully executed that they radically shifted my perception of Honda.
Poke Fun at Yourself
Many years ago I decided that it was just too much work to be cool. If your brand, or category, is notoriously uncool, a great strategy is to poke fun at yourself. This will differentiate you from your competitors that take themselves way too seriously. Humor is always cool. And if you can pull it off like Toyota’s campaign for the Sienna mini-van (previously uncool), then you’ve scored. The hilarious ads and mock hip-hop music video Rollin’ in my Swagger Wagon left me thinking that maybe I should get some kids and a Sienna, err Swagger Wagon. Never thought I’d say that.
I know what your thinking. The car industry has gazillion dollar marketing budgets to shape hearts and minds. Yes they do, but you don’t have to. Take the strategies from above and execute it guerilla style (i.e. on the cheap).
So, how can you use the “halo effect” to cast a favorable glow onto your brand? Consider teaming up with another brand that may be extra-shiny. Doing work for shiny brands can be beneficial. Prospective clients still believe LecoursDesign is responsible for launching Red Bull in the USA because we designed some simple graphics for their first in-store promotion. Getting shiny people to interact with work you’ve done is also effective. If they’ll also provide some sort of testimonial, then even better. If there is a way leverage the work your firm provided within a much bigger project, don’t be shy about claiming the association.
In short, constantly be searching for opportunities to align your brand with more influential brands, so you don’t have to always do the heavy lifting.
A lot of firms struggle with choosing a market sector in which to focus their marketing efforts. To build your brand, you need to identify the type of work you seek. This declaration should be formalized in a strategic plan. But don’t let this scare you. Strategic planning has a reputation for being difficult, complicated and time consuming. Typically the process begins with a SWOT analysis looking at your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Here is a simplified version focusing on your strengths.I recently had an opportunity to see Chip Heath speak about his new book Switch. Chip, along with his brother Dan, also wrote the fantastic Made To Stick. In Switch, they introduce a concept called “Find the Bright Spots.” Bright spots, as applied to your marketing, are successful efforts that you’ve already been doing, and simply repeating them.
Create Your Top 10
First, make a list of the top 10 projects you’ve ever worked on. Yes, I know “top” is ambiguous and purposely so. To be meaningful, YOU need to define top. Top could mean revenue, creativity, great people, fun, social good, publicity or some combination thereof. Whatever your definition of top is, it must embody the type of projects that you’d love to work on next. Marketing is all about the work that you seek.
Discover What’s Working
Next, create a grid with your top 10 projects listed down the left side. Across the top, list the following questions to ask about each project:
How did this client learn about your firm?
Why were you hired? What other reasons did they hire you?
Type of project by service?
Type of client by vertical market (biotech or tourism for example)?
What time of year were you hired?
Any professional affiliations of the key decision makers?
Gender and age of the key decision makers?
You should be asking these important questions each time you get hired (and not hired). There is no expiration date on asking. Don’t assume why you get hired and then go out and repeat the wrong the things.
Let The Patterns Define Your Strategy
As you can imagine, you are looking for patterns to emerge in the grid you’ve created above. If you notice a large percentage of projects in a certain vertical market, this defines your niche. A certain service that shows up frequently can further define your speciality. If you see a pattern of why you get hired, then this becomes the positioning for your next ad campaign, tagline and website messaging. The goal is to market “with the flow” of what you are already doing well.
I know there are bright spots in your marketing or you wouldn’t be in business. Don’t focus on the problems. Yes, there is something innately satisfying about figuring out what’s broken and then fixing it. But if you focus on what is working, the “bright spots,” this path of least resistance will bring you successwith greater ease.
What Do You Think? What insights did gain from creating your Top 10 list?
Are there other areas of your business that you can leverage what is already working?
How could you apply these principles to your life?
I recently led my training seminar How To Become a Creative Superhero for The Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS). A critical lesson in the seminar is that failure is essential to success. I know…this seems wacky. But we must fail, and the benefits are below. Embracing failure as part of your creative process lands you on the path to marketing (and life) success.
If You’re Not Failing, You’re Not Living
Much of marketing professional services is demonstrating meaningful differentiation from your competitors. To do so, you’ve got to consistently communicate your uniqueness in new ways. Being different requires taking risks. Hugh Mcleaod says “great new ideas have lonely childhoods.” Creating something new can be messy, uncomfortable and unknown. It requires great courage. Even the world’s best fail. “Talent and intelligence never innoculate anyone against failure,” reminds J.K. Rowling, author of the Harry Potter series.
The Benefits of Failure
Failure teaches you things that you could learn no other way. As Bucky Fuller says, “You can never learn less; you can only learn more. The reason I know so much is because I have made so many mistakes.” This philosophy is the heart of the Japanese business concept “kaizen” (continual improvement). By pushing against, and breaking through boundaries, you develop a range of acceptable solutions. It’s also liberating to have your biggest fear (failure) be realized, and know you are still alive to create brilliance. Your subconscious mind wants you to succeed. You can see this in mini-failures that are actually “happy accidents.” This happened to me recently in a client presentation when the words out of my mouth were not what I intended (aka Freudian slip), but were actually considerably better. Be sure to recognize the gifts of failure when they show up in your creative process.
Build Failure Into Your Process
Like life itself, the creative process is beyond our total control. Accept it when failure shows up as a guest in your creative house. Greet failure and keep moving. This simple acceptance opens you up to the creative magic that will flow. The goal is to embrace failure early and frequently. You can even make it fun. Consider offering a booby prize to the person that comes up with the most ridiculous idea in your next brainstorming session. Be sure to save your ideas that don’t make the cut. They are simply solutions to the next creative problem. Plus, nobody has to see your “sketches.” You only need to unveil your final work of art.
Failure is like spinach for Popeye: it doesn’t kill us and only makes us stronger. The mind once stretched to a new idea never regains its original shape. Now take your newfound love of failure and incorporate it into your next creative marketing project.
As we leave the Information Age to enter the Conceptual Age, we need a new kind of hero. Dan Pink declares in A Whole New Mind that right-brainers will rule the future. Creative ideas are the currency successful marketers use to elevate their firm, stretch their budget and build their brand. But unlike superheros, creative ideas don’t just magically appear when you need them. Similar to Bruce Wayne entering the batcave to become Batman, here is a process that will transcend you from mere mortal into Creative Superhero.
1. Define the Task – First you must determine what is needed, why now, who is it for, and what resources are available. Creativity also craves boundaries (like a deadline and budget.) Be sure to elicit early support from anyone that can approve or reject your ideas. This phase should culminate in a creative brief that will be a target to use when measuring possible solutions. For a free sample of a creative brief template that we use at LecoursDesign, click here.
2. Investigate – Immerse yourself in your audience’s world and ask illuminating questions. Within the answers, creative solutions will begin to emerge. Search for a way to connect with your audience on an emotional level.
3. Create – Let the ideas flow by focusing on quantity over quality. I heed an image on my studio wall that says “Do Not Fall in Love with Your First Idea.” There are no bad nor perfect ideas. Make it playful and fun. Break this phase up into several short sessions and always be ready to capture ideas in between. Be sure to drink from a well of creative inspiration because output is directly related to input. Silence your inner critic “faster than a speeding bullet” or it will weaken you like Kryptonite.
4. Incubate – Leave your initial ideas alone for a day or two. There’s a reason people say they get their best ideas in the shower, on a walk, or while driving. The subconscious mind is powerful if you just let it emerge.
5. Analyze – Eliminate the weaker solutions from phase 3. Watch for safe ideas that your boss or client may like but you know aren’t exceptional. Don’t let the good get in the way of the great.
6. Refine – Prototype and refine the top 2-3 solutions while continually looking for improvements. If stuck, review the brief from phase 1.
7. Deliver – Make a big deal of presenting your ideas. Give them the reverence they deserve by presenting in person. Anticipate any concerns before presenting.
8. Measure – Create a feedback loop by measuring success against the objectives established in phase 1 for continual improvement.
We are all creative and I believe that innovating is a learned skill. Batman used his ingenuity to design the Batmobile and other cool gadgets to give him a competitive advantage. Nurturing your creativity can do the same for you.
Would you like me to lead an interactive in-house seminar or deliver a keynote speech to your organization on this topic? E-mail me to discuss.
By now, you should have started creating your Marketing Plan/Budget. Here are three tips to guide you, because as you’ve probably heard, “failing to plan is planning to fail.” I know it’s tempting to simply copy and paste last year’s plan but this is a bit like driving while only looking in the rear-view mirror. Market opportunities, alliances, relationships are constantly changing so your Marketing Plan needs to evolve as well.
1. What to Include
A good Marketing Plan is a one year roadmap of how you will achieve your firm’s Strategic Plan. Here is what you should include: Budget (see below), Staffing (who will do what and by when), Timeline (prioritized sequencing of implementation), Promotional Mix (advertising, web site, social media, brochure, video PR, events, etc.). If you need help in this area, I can recommend a consultant. To help you get started, click here for a free .pdf map to help you through the process.
2. Ask for the Money
Don’t be timid in asking for a healthy budget that will allow you to effectively market your firm. There are three methods I know of to create your budget. Projection is taking last year’s budget, and based on projected growth or decline, adjust this year’s budget. Percentage is taking a straight 10″“15% of gross revenues. I recommend Goal-Based; which is taking each goal from your Strategic Plan and breaking down what it will cost to achieve that goal. You can then check this against Projection and Percentage to make sure your budget request is realistic. Your labor costs should be 50″“70% of your overall budget with promotional costs covering the remaining 30″“50%. I’m happy to provide rough estimates to help with budget requests. Is it likely that your plan might change throughout the year? Absolutely. But if you don’t ask for the money now, it will surely be designated to something else later when you really need it.
3. Implementing the Plan
Having a plan is a great first step, but implementation is what you will be measured against. First, form a core Marketing Team (not too big, but with enough Principal muscle to be influential). Marketing Plans will fail unless the talent responsible for implementation is involved in the creation of the plan. Share the Marketing Plan with everyone in the organization because marketing the firm is everyone’s business. Finally, review and measure on a regular basis (at least monthly). Be sure to share success stories internally. This demonstrates the value of marketing and builds momentum and morale.
Just doing what you’ve always done will get you what you’ve always got. So invest in your Marketing Plan to be a beacon for your best year yet. This will help to prioritize proactive and reactive opportunities and make the most of your time and money.
What Do You Think? Is this helpful to get you started in creating your marketing plan? Is there anything else that you include in your marketing plan?
What are some ways you motivate your team to support your marketing plan?
