R.U.B.O.Q.?

A few days ago, the Bank of Queensland launched this re-brand.

And since then – and like many launches of late – it's attracted mixed reviews, most notably here.

So I thought I'd add my own thoughts into the mix with this comment that I left on Mumbrella:

I've been interested to read the discussion here about this campaign and the idea behind it, but it seems everyone is focusing on the issue from a purely visual perspective or in terms of production. And ignoring the fact they've changed their name from Bank of Queensland to BOQ, as well as the potential reasons why – which is a pretty big deal.

When it comes to choosing names – for babies or banks – it's always difficult. But what's even more intriguing about this case is that while their campaign is all about being small and personal, their change of name says exactly the opposite.

Firstly, choosing an acronym is the surest way to strip any emotion and meaning from a word. Acronyms typically lack personality and make it hard for people to remember what they stood for in the first place. Which, unfortunately, does not resonate with their new tagline "Your own personal bank".

Secondly, it's interesting to think about why they switched to an acronym. The likeliest reasons are more to do with a commercial rather than a creative strategy. They want to put some clear water between the brand and the word "bank", as well as lose the restrictions that come with the geographical tag "Queensland".

In other words, this isn't about getting smaller, this is about getting bigger. Much bigger.

So what will it be? A small, local bank with the personal touch? Or, an international institution that hides behind a faceless acronym? Looks like they're keeping their options open for now.

Brain freeze

This week, I had the dubious pleasure of listening to one of advertising's self-professed elders parading his special brand of insights into the wired world of web 2.0. However, having left his credibility back in the early 90s, this was no pleasurable task – neither for him nor his audience.

After a shaky start, an in-joke failed to rally the troops, and things quickly went downhill as he struggled to work his way through a selection of video material. By the time he came to reveal his big strategy play, a minor PR disaster had to be narrowly averted as he showed an ad starring a cast of people who were completely naked. If presenting an ad from 2007 under the banner of his latest thoughts wasn't bad enough (or maybe that was when he had his latest thoughts), why he felt this the right forum for full frontal nudity was the only thing left to the imagination. A few sombre shakes of the head from the back of the room brought the presentation to a swift conclusion.

For those who missed out, here was his 3-step strategy for success.

1. Find the funniest videos that other people have already uploaded onto YouTube.

2. Pay the videos' creators makers as much of the client’s money as possible just to have their logo added to the end frame.

3. Upload this brand new video to YouTube.

That was it. I'm not kidding.

The end of the presentation could not have come quick enough, and I soon found myself in the back of a cab, sliding through the city in the mid-morning traffic. I slumped into the seat, and waited hopefully for some feeling to return to my brain.

Every brand is an icon

Religion and the illegal drug trade have always had a lot to teach people about the merits of a telling a good story with focus and purpose to an audience whose specific needs they are targeting. As a result, both can lay claim to millions of loyal followers and a very high incidence of repeat purchase.

Too many brands nowadays take a more scattergun approach, hoping to reach anyone who'll listen with a message that contains something for everyone. And in the meantime, the definitive meaning of the brand itself is lost in the wash.

In particular, I am continually surprised by the number of brands who promote themselves as an "icon" without truly understanding the facets and implications of the term. Most brands claim icon status through sheer perseverance and heritage alone, but more often than not, their audience has simply grown as old as their brand. From personal experience, none of my grandparents found any solace in their old age, but instead they discovered every reason to rejoice in their youthful spirit. This is the crucial recognition that all brands must make in order to survive. Age has always just been a number, while a strong and youthful spirit is the driver of all life’s pursuits. Good brands never grow old. Unfortunately, too many brands die with their audience.

Brands face this battle against extinction on a daily basis and it is the very iconic nature of branding that enables customers to make instant purchase decisions without having to review a company’s entire corporate history to help make them. Technically speaking, every brand is an icon. Brands act as symbols to represent a larger entity and deeper meaning than simply the logo, a critical signpost for what you can expect and your invitation as a customer to participate. It is branding that makes it possible for you to purchase hundreds of products for your weekly supermarket shop in a matter of hours, or buy a car without having to inspect the factory itself and interview key personnel about production methods.

For any brand to be successful, it must by definition be iconic. However, too many brands start and end with the logo without investing deeper meaning in their brand. In countless taste tests for beer, people generally have difficulty picking between products until you serve the beer in branded glasses – and as it turns out, your favourite brand is sometimes not your favourite beer.

Apple means a lot to people. More importantly, the Apple brand means more than the specific technical features of the products themselves. The uplifting experience of breakthrough innovation and user-oriented technology is championed by employees and cherished by customers – even Steve Jobs’ keynote speeches were met with an exuberance and excitement more typically seen at political rallies and football matches.

If you were to take Virgin at face value, it clearly would not make sense to put your trust – and, in a variety of different ways, your life – in the hands of someone who is quite literally a virgin.

Similarly, Orange represented little more than a colour somewhere between red and yellow until Hutchison Whampoa injected it with the promise of demystifying the telecommunications market for consumers. The Orange brand symbolised not just a phone plan but more a philosophy that recognised customer needs and responded to them with a refreshingly candid approach to a complex and cluttered market. People liked the plans, but they liked the brand even more.

Apple, Virgin and Orange are all iconic brands. Not because they have discovered some holy grail of branding that lies beyond the reach of most marketing departments and their agencies, but simply because they have spent the time and energy creating a deeper meaning for their brand, their customers and employees.

What’s more, they are all brands that have invested in reinventing themselves over time – they have grown up without growing old.

Nudie achieved huge success with an entertaining story that meant so much more than communicating the real fruit content of its juice by blithely mirroring this with images of real fruit on its packaging. However, the big question for any successful brand like Nudie is always what they do next – sales figures signal a successful past, but they do not provide any guarantee of an equally successful future. And it seems that the copycat characteristics of the juice category that gave us a sea of spritzed oranges have now turned their attention to creating the comic book caricatures that have dragged Nudie back into the pack of pretenders.

One category facing this exact problem is wristwatches. Having enjoyed phenomenal success over the years, many watch brands have seen their premium cachet diluted by the fact that your watch is now far from the only personal accessory to showcase your luxury lifestyle in a split second. The unprecedented rise of the mobile phone as a statement of luxury (and not just a communications device) has drawn brands like Tag Heuer out of their shells and into the business of designing mobile phones as watches for the 21^st century. Car manufacturers picked up on exactly the same status cues when they started to invest more heavily in the branding and design of their car keys.

What a brand means is the single most important factor in its success. The most successful brands are built around a sustainable idea that transcends time and context. This is the basic premise for a brand’s equity and one of the key elements that enables businesses to value their brand both in financial terms and measures of commercial goodwill. Successful brands have to succeed financially if they are to deliver true and tangible value to the businesses that they represent, and too often in the past has the iconic nature of branding related purely to cult and boutique brands that never make it on the commercial stage.

A long and impressive heritage, a cult following, or a hero product is no longer enough to sustain a successful brand. What makes brands tick is the ongoing investment of time and energy that goes towards creating and codifying the meaningful expression of a unique point of view. As a result, inventing – and reinventing – the future is much more significant than reflecting on the past, something that has been impressively evidenced by the way in which Pacific Brands reinvigorated the once faded icon that was Bonds through their product development and communications.

To paraphrase George Orwell, all brands are iconic, but some are more iconic than others.

The politics of branding

Before I begin, let me tell you that I am one of the least political people I know.

That said, working on the branding of a political campaign had always been one of my career ambitions. There simply didn't seem to be any marketing challenge that could beat a political campaign for its sheer immediacy and interaction. Real-time polling. Strategy, and counter-strategy. A complex and incredibly dynamic competitive landscape. And, of course, a fickle electorate to make the final decision.

That was until political campaigns became dull, conventional and, ultimately, meaningless for pretty much everyone bar the political candidate and their cronies.

But then that all changed for me with the most recent American election and the campaign run by Barack Obama. Irrespective of my own political beliefs (and limited enthusiasm, as above), he instantly struck me as a man willing to stand for something more than the hackneyed, cautiously worded policies of times past. He dealt with issues in a way that not only seemed to make sense for the people, but also – and importantly so – just felt right.

In the world of commerce, they say that "in the absence of a clear business strategy, any brand strategy will do", and the same had often struck me about politicians. So often it's more about the individual policies than their political platform or philosophy (if they're the right terms), it's all short-term tactics and the political equivalent of discount sales to score votes as the public relations people are allowed to run riot.

So it was refreshing, to say to the least, to be able to hear David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager, talk about some of the strategy behind the campaign at this seminar at Cannes last week. I won't attempt to paraphrase what he says – you're better off hearing him speak for yourself – but a couple of points in particular stood out for me.

Firstly, Obama set the strategy from the top and everything filtered down from his vision. Now if only we all had a leader like that.

And secondly, everything worked in sync. Messaging, media, events, door-knocking and so on all spruiked the same content on the same day in the same state as the campaign moved around the country.

Neither of those two things are easy to achieve, but just look what happens when you get them right.

Pumping up the tyres of the recession

People typically reveal themselves when under pressure.

The recession is putting a good many businesses under a fair amount of pressure. I, for one, think that can only be a good thing, but it is enlightening to see how differently the reactions range.

Take financial institutions.

Most have simply screeched to a halt, blinded in the headlights of the oncoming issues. This generation of bankers haven’t really had to make tough calls before about their futures before because all roads seemed to be paved with gold and it was simply a question of degrees of success. And when it came to their brands, as long as the business card was embossed with gold leaf on a weighty stock, none of them really cared. If they happen to have pulled over carefully to the side of the road, they might be able to avoid scrutiny, but if they find themselves at a busy crossroads, it’s likely they’ll get caught in the pile-up.

Many have taken a more dogmatic view. Hunkering down in the comfort of their most recent bonus, they are simply hoping that it will all go away before they have to change their habits. The machine is still full steam ahead, but no one is particularly keen to take the wheel, or even look over the dashboard. And if they do crash, there is a clear belief that the combination of size and sheer momentum will carry their brand through to the other side with only some minor abrasions and maybe a slow puncture.

There are a few that have decided to trade their vehicle, as it were, for a slightly different model. Maybe it’s a different colour, or maybe it’s a more substantial change like smaller engine capacity or lighter fuel consumption. Whatever the difference, they’re trying valiantly to tune their brand to the times without necessarily going so far as to forego it altogether for a completely different vehicle. It’s a sensible strategy, at least for the fact that it’s a little more considered.

And finally, they’re a small number that have decided that to put their foot down and either ram their competitors off the road or car­–jack them at the next set of lights. It’s not pretty, but it’s basic marketing instinct for those who want their brand to prosper not just survive.

But it’s not just financial institutions that find themselves driving their brand manually when they have only ever cruised along in automatic. The recession has hit everyone in different ways. From FMCG to fashion, cars to airline carriers.

That said, a recession doesn’t simply have to be about going backwards, quite literally receding. There are as many advantages as there are disadvantages to be gained by choosing to go forward, even if it may require a small sideways step to get you started.

You might need a push from some friends, maybe a jump–start from an unexpected passer–by, or there might even be a free tank of fuel in a competitor’s abandoned brand.

Anyway, I promise that’s the first and last time I’ll write about the recession. I find them incredibly tedious affairs as everyone (1) gets incredibly anxious at the slightest twinge, and then (2) feels the need to talk about the importance of investing in a downturn with the same fervent passion as a man who has just discovered crack cocaine and is absolutely certain that no one will ever get this high again.

That’s it. No more recession talk. I promise. (Except for a presentation to a client next week – their idea, not mine.)