Marketing Matters

Archive for April, 2009

I’ve never met a business owner who hasn’t believed that change is good, but sometimes changing nothing will provide better brand value. Ben & Jerry’s were recently presented with just such a perfect pitch by one of their main competitors, Haagen-Dazs.

Here’s what happened:
Haagen-Dazs noticed that their production costs were rising and started trying to find solutions. They had several options:

• Exert market pressure on suppliers who are jacking up prices because of last year’s increase in oil prices
• Reach out through social media channels to their most active consumers and explain the situation
• Launch a viral campaign in which they demonstrate the way they’re fighting for summer against the forces of evil
• Pass on the cost increase to the consumer
• Reduce their profit margin
• Improve their internal efficiency to save money
• Shrink the size of a “pint” and hope no one notices they’re getting less with no change in price.

Which do you suppose they did? If you guessed “shrink the size of their pint” you win the kewpie doll. With a murmur on their Web site Haagen-Dazs explained that they are no longer in the business of selling pints of ice cream. They shrunk their packages from 16 to 14 ounces

Ben & Jerry’s responded immediately with a well-distributed press release that was very simple. Everyone’s feeling the pinch, they wrote, and “now more than ever you deserve your full pint of ice cream.”

With that simple statement, they positioned themselves as a brand that cares about you and your family in this economy and Haagen-Dazs as the brand that doesn’t.

Sometimes business realities are harsh and prices need to go up and things need to change. A wise company will figure out how to come out a hero when it’s struggling against market forces. That’s why they employ hundreds of professional storytellers (read marketers): to figure out how to structure the story. That’s the way you stay on top of it and preserve your brand value. And these days, marketers have incredible tools with which to be clever and reach out to their consumers.

What you don’t do is ignore the fact that acquiring new consumers is about brand image. Don’t blow yours by handing your primary competitor an opportunity to make huge gains in brand value by doing nothing except issuing a press release.

It was a pretty harsh wake-up call to have the Online ID Calculator tell me I’m only digitally dabbling.

source: http://www.onlineidcalculator.com/digitalscale.html

Considering the pains I take as a marketer to establish continuity in my messaging across my blog, site, LinkedIn profile, Facebook page and Twitter (which I’ll admit I only do when I have something to say), I was surprised I didn’t cross the threshold into “digitally distinct”. That’s a good indicator of the lengths you have to go to truly make your brand distinct.

The Calculator was created “to help [you] understand how [your] personal brand shows up online.” It’s free and it’s certainly worthwhile. No matter who you are or how you’re using your online presence, it’s worth knowing. Brands can quickly get away from you, no matter how hard you try to control them – just look at what happened to Domino’s this week.

A tool like this is a quick and easy way to check up on the status of your brand. If you find out it’s in a bad quadrant, you should take a firmer grip of the reins and start to steer your messaging in the direction you want it to go.

If you’re not sure how to coordinate your branding efforts, be they your personal brand or for your company, take a look at this video I did for TheLadders.com. It’s directed at job seekers, but it’s really for anyone who cares about a brand they’re involved with.

Did you try it? How do you rank?