birddog

The Business of a Top 100 Brand

For the last decade, Interbrand has been producing an annual report on the top 100 ‘Best Global Brands’. It makes interesting reading. It doesn’t make truly compelling reading though, and it doesn’t offer much in the way of deep insight. Perhaps that’s to be expected – it’s the nature of the beast. When you’re looking for trends across 100 global brands it’s no real wonder that the common ground ends up being generic.

It’s a bit like the ‘Top 100 TV Moments’, and the ‘Top 100 Movie Moments’, and all the other ‘Top 100 Moments’ that exist as TV scheduling fillers. Whilst the journey through the respective ‘Top 100 [insert filler of your choice]’ can be an interesting one, you can be fairly certain that your personal favourite isn’t going to be number one. It is a source of constant disappointment to me, for example, that the angelic harmonising of the Von Trapp Family in the classic Sound of Music never actually makes it to number one anywhere except in my dreams.

And so, because we all kind of knew the report findings this year – the economy’s in the shitter, the financial brands have taken a pasting, no one trusts anyone anymore, social media and the digital landscape’s a bitch and none of the big brands really know how to deal with it globally… – I thought it might be helpful to offer an additional insight from Interbrand’s work that may offer some hope to the B2B community.

Seven of the Top Ten Global Brands achieve a significant proportion of their revenues from the B2B sector. Seven. Of the top ten. B2B.

I thought that was pretty impressive for the Business to Business market. IBM, Microsoft, Google, General Electric, Intel, Nokia, HP – they’re all big B2B players. Using Interbrand’s statistics, they have a combined brand value of over $300bn. That means those seven B2B brands in the Top 10 have a higher brand value than all the other B2C brands in the Top 20 combined ($271bn). Not too shabby.

So whilst we’re all scrabbling around in the muck and bullets of day-to-day B2B marketing life, it’s worth remembering that we have a significant pedigree to live up to. The next time someone tells you that ‘brands’ are things they buy in supermarkets, just remind them that, actually, the top brands are mainly B2B. (Then sniff the air, turn on your heel and exit leaving only a ‘talk to the hand’ gesture for them to remember you by…)

Scot McKee
Managing Director
Twitter

What’s in a name?

Readers of a certain age will know George Foreman for what he was: a world-class boxer and winner of 76 fights. Others –students, say – will more likely be familiar with the name for its association with the food grill Foreman launched in 1994. His famous tagline – “It’s so good, I put my name on it!” – has permeated into popular catchphrase culture. Business Week reckons ‘Big George’ has earned in excess of $200m as a direct result of the deal, while the grill itself has shifted more than 100m units. It’s a success story of personal product endorsement the like of which is now very rare. Or at least medium-rare.

To be fair, the 21st century power of celebrity is such that figures like the Beckhams or Cheryl Tweedy have no need (financial or otherwise) to lend their actual names to other products, and, likewise, brands only really require a glimpse of a famous face or a few words from their mouths for a celeb endorsement to work its magic. It’s one thing to flick a head of styled hair and quip “You’re worth it!” in a 20 second ad, though, and quite another to take the step of signing over your given name to the fate of a single product.

It is probably fair to say then that ‘putting your name on it’, as George Foreman confidently stated, and building it up as a brand is no easy matter. The potential risks struck me as (continuing the food theme) I sat down with my better half to eat in Tom Aikens’s restaurant in South Kensington. It was the first restaurant the semi-celebrity chef opened, in 2003, and is simply called Tom Aikens. In large lettering outside the building. It’s a permanent tying of name to brand and assumes responsibility for pretty much anything that happens to diners here on in. Now, I’m no restaurant critic, but as it turned out the experience was so good, it’s worth giving it a go.

The first thing was the décor: comfortable furniture, soft low lighting, a warm unelaborate interior design. It had an inviting air, encouraging the relaxed chatter murmuring in the background. Not one element hinted at pretension, which, for a well-known chef-owned restaurant in South Ken on a Saturday evening, could have been forgiven.

The front of house staff, meanwhile, were immaculate, appearing from nowhere to fill up empty wine glasses, bringing out each course with exquisite timing (we were eating from the eight-course Tasting Menu, so this was doubly appreciated), tactfully replacing cutlery and napkins, explaining information about certain dishes, and never short of a ‘Sir’ or ‘Madam’. But despite all this, they couldn’t have been more unobtrusive, and any prior notions that this high level of service might seem overbearing, or worse still, aloof, were long gone.

And so to the food. Whether or not the man himself was behind the scenes was irrelevant: the chefs and kitchen staff at Tom Aikens succeeded in delivering a stunning, tell-all-your-friends-about-it tour de force in contemporary cuisine. From the cured Foie Gras to the passion fruit jelly, via John Dorey fillet and loin of ewe’s cheese-marinated lamb, the sumptuous tastes and rich textures instilled in each course made for an unforgettable and supreme dining experience.

Because the experience at Tom Aikens’s restaurant was, from start to finish, of the highest order. A not-insignificant investment in the personnel and countless hours training, sourcing the best ingredients and ensuring the finest preparation and presentation, pitching the aesthetics of the restaurant just right – it all had to combine exactly to positively affect the end experience and achieve a continual rise in stock for the Tom Aikens brand. If there had been even one weak link in the chain, the negative perception would have been firmly associated with the name – and in the eyes of the customer, followed it around wherever else it appeared.

Instead, it was an illustration of how hard work, preparation and care for the entirety of a brand will deliver a rich and full experience of it. It was also an illustration of just how necessary that effort is, to ensure your brand is being enhanced by everything that’s connected to it. It’s not what’s in a name, after all, but what’s behind it. Tom Aikens has certainly got it right.

Tim Miller
Content Editor

UPDATE: 4 October 2010

Things got a little bit exciting at the Birddog office last week. Even more exciting than that time a beach football got delivered by an anonymous sender.

Following the above blog post spotlighting George Foreman’s mid-nineties rebirth as the lean, mean grilling machine, then waxing lyrically about the experience at the Tom Aikens restaurant in South Kensington, both aforementioned foodsters were soon contacting us in response.

It was Mr Foreman’s Twitter people dropping by for a chat first of all, but Tom Aikens took the next step of engagement by seeking out Birddog’s contact details from our website, and leaving a personally addressed note of thanks in our eagerly-accepting inbox.

The blog itself had, by this point, been live on the site for three days. On the first day, having tweeted through the Birddog feed about the latest blog update, @GeorgeGrillsUK were on our tail. Two days later, Tom Aikens was in touch via email, taking a moment to offer thanks for our positively charged blog.

James Ainsworth, social media marketing specialist at Alterian, was suitably impressed by the speed in which George Foreman’s team got in touch to blog about it.

Having already sung the praises about brand experience originally, it also appears that these brands have a commendable approach to social media monitoring too.

Tim

Believe in the Concept

I have had a busy summer shouting at stupid people. Having received a brief for a European corporate ‘Awareness Campaign’, I duly presented the accumulated wisdom of my many years of awareness campaigning to Sir and a considerable flock of subordinates, (including a slightly sallow, moist and inexplicably flaking representative from a media agency…). The client expressed his “disappointment” that I hadn’t addressed their need for a “value proposition”. He worked his way around the room gathering opinion from his team who all said, “Baaaa… oooh yes Sir, you’re so right…”

I felt like a gunslinger walking into the saloon where the conversation stops and the piano player dives behind the bar. The safety catch was off. I now had a choice. I could back out the door slowly and hope I made it to my horse before my mouth started firing random abuse, or I could slug it out. Sometimes I wish I could just, you know, ‘not’. But there we are…

The red mist welled up and all I can really remember is that I didn’t jab my finger in anyone’s face. I saw an interview with Bill Clinton once where he said that in heated debate, it was essential not to point fingers as the gesture was overly aggressive. Clinton used his thumb which, apparently, is politically correct. So there I was, purple faced, neck vein bulging, spraying spittle across a good metre and a half of conference table as I ranted uncontrollably and all I could think of was, “It’s Ok Scot, it doesn’t matter what names you’re calling him, you’re not pointing, you’re using your thumb. All is well.”

All was in fact very far indeed from ‘well’. It was unacceptable in my opinion that a two billion dollar company should ask a number of small agencies for their unpaid responses to their brief and then move the goalposts from ‘awareness’ to ‘value proposition’. I was particularly incandescent because this was at least the second time this particular client (I use the term loosely) had shape-shifted mid stroke. 18 months earlier the brief had been for a (expressly and specifically) “radical and creative brand strategy.” That’s what I delivered. Turns out my proposal was “too radical…” and, “too creative…” The agency appointed was, “safe, with a process.” Safe it may well have been, but the client had seemingly spent 18 months producing a brand strategy with a worthless proposition and decided that the best time to be disappointed at my lack of telepathy skills was after I had presented the requested brand awareness campaign. Tisk.

At some undefined point, my spleen was fully vented and a stunned silence reigned. (There was still a wild howling in my ears of course, but for the most part, the room was quiet.) I packed up my things, and, with the surprising absence of ‘any further questions’, I left.

He called me the following day. I’m still not sure why. Apparently, “it’s important to follow these things up.” Well, no, it isn’t. Everything had been said. It turns out he still thought he was right and just wanted another fight. I nearly gave it to him too. But as the red mist rose, I caught myself, took a deep breath and simply said, “Look, you’re worth nothing to me. You’ve been worth nothing for years and you’ll never be worth anything. You’re a drain on my resources and my energy. I can apply both to considerably better commercial advantage elsewhere. The conversation’s over. Goodbye.” And I hung up.

It’s possible I was wrong. It’s possible that the work didn’t answer the brief. It’s even possible that it just wasn’t good enough. But that’s not the point. The point, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is that you have to believe. Not a little, not a lot. You have to BELIEVE with every single fibre in your body. Because no one else will. Least of all the client. Believe it, live it and hang up on any mutthafuggah who isn’t prepared to die for the cause.

Scot McKee
Managing Director
Birddog Ltd.
+44 (0)20 7323 6666

Brand Perception. Does BMW Care?

I used to drive a BMW. I used the past tense deliberately. I’ve driven loads of them. A BMW 3 Series to start with, then a BMW 5 Series, then a 7 Series briefly, then a 6 Series, then I bought a 3 Series Touring for my wife, and I bought myself a BMW 330d Sport. I’ve driven other cars, but I think it’s reasonable to say I was a BMW fan. Your archetypal ‘brand evangelist’, that was me. That’s all changed.

I liked my 330d so much, I’ve been driving it for the last 5 years. It’s covered 75 thousand almost trouble-free miles, but it was just time to change it. So I walked in to a BWM showroom a couple of months ago and tried to buy a new one. Easier said than done. Try as I might to part with several tens of thousands of pounds, I just couldn’t get the salesman to realise that I was ready to pay the cash equivalent of a small neighbourhood in certain parts of Manchester. He just wanted to make me have a test drive in something I had no need of testing. So I left.

That, in and of itself, is no big deal. I still had my trusty 330 and figured I would revisit the new BMW purchase when the opportunity or fancy took me, whichever came first. But then the ‘tapakata, pakata, pakata’ noise started. Tapakata was swiftly accompanied by black smoke, and blue smoke, and I believe there may also have been some green and yellow smoke although it was difficult to tell with the cabin full of multicoloured smoke and the increasingly distracting noise of metal grinding on metal which had the same jarring effect as the guy on Jaws scraping his fingernails down the blackboard in the ‘Let’s close the beach before everyone dies’ scene.

The car limped into the BMW Service Centre and let out a small and, to my ear, quite final squeak as I turned off the ignition and sat in the car park hissing and creaking and clicking gently. The car that is, not me.

The prognosis was a fault with the air intake manifold. I asked for an explanation in English and was advised that two metal flaps had broken off and fallen inside the engine. The ‘tapakata’ grinding was the metal being mashed by and mashing the pistons and cylinders. “That sounds bad,” I said in my cheeriest ‘oh well, cars eh?’ voice. “How much will it cost to fix?” There was a pause before the technician said, “Seven thousand pounds.” Well, I barely paused at all before saying, “SEVE… What the fffggggnnn… you are SHITTING me, right???” “Then there’s the labour…” he added quietly, “…plus tax. In round numbers, ten grand.”

“So what you’re telling me is it’s a write-off,” I said. “I thought BMW engines were bulletproof. I thought BMW diesel engines were simply invincible. This one’s less that five years old, BMW serviced from new and has only done seventy thousand miles. It’s barely run-in.”

“Mmmm.” He said. “I can submit a ‘goodwill claim’ to BMW for you.”
“You mean it shouldn’t have happened?”
“I can’t say that Sir, but I can submit a goodwill claim with no liability attached.”
“So you do mean it shouldn’t have happened.”
“All I can say, Sir, is that it is ‘unusual’ and we wouldn’t normally expect a BMW of this age, with this mileage, to experience this fault.”
“It shouldn’t have happened.”
“Mmmmm.”

At this point, I could make a reasonable case, that if the numpty salesman had listened to me the first time round, I would have been in a new car before this problem ever arose. But I’m not going to do that, because that’s not the thing.

A few days later, I received a call from the technician…
“Good news Mr. McKee. We’ve heard from BMW and they’re prepared to make a goodwill repair contribution of £8,500.00. You would just have to pay the balance of £1,500.00.”
“So it shouldn’t have happened then.”
“It’s a goodwill gesture Mr. McKee, that’s all I can tell you.”
“Ok Mike, I’m a reasonable guy and it sounds like BMW is being reasonable so ‘Ok’, in principal, that’s acceptable. However…”

And I went on to explain that it would be a pointless waste of everyone’s time and money to spend the £8,500.00 on the repair when I didn’t actually want the car back. What I wanted was a new car. A new BMW. I explained that I’d been trying to buy one from them for a while but was a little confused by their seemingly mandatory test-drive policy. I was ‘happy’ to pay for my new car – anything up to the equivalent of a small neighbourhood in certain parts of Manchester – and all I needed now was for BMW to turn the £8,500.00 repair offer into a virtual part exchange. Basically and very simply (in my mind…) they could keep the old car (that shouldn’t have broken). I would accept their £8,500.00 car token and immediately and conditionally more than quadruple the value by adding cash to buy a new BMW from their showroom.

It all seemed so easy to me. I was the customer being inconvenienced, I knew what I wanted, I wasn’t going to make a fuss about the car that shouldn’t have broken and I was very reasonably going to reinvest the money they were offering me and add to the pot by giving them more. From BMW’s perspective, I figured they’d be happy to satisfy the customer, even better, the customer was going to spend even more money and even, even, betterer, the customer was going to continue driving a BMW, continue spending money on BMW servicing for the lifecycle of the car and would doubtless tell anyone who would listen about his experience with the BMW brand. Well, I was right about the last point.

BMW said, “No.” Not, ‘No and here’s the thinking behind our decision because we’d still like to retain you as a customer.’ Just, “No.”

Which brings me on to the thing. This story is a bit about money, it’s a bit about customer service, but that’s not the thing. The thing is about Brand Reputation. I expected more from the BMW brand. I must have spent in the region of quarter of a million pounds with BMW as a driver and, up until the point where my perceptions of the brand changed, I would doubtless have continued spending. I remember reading a BMW case study in college where the point was made that BMW didn’t try to sell customers a car, they wanted to secure customer loyalty to the brand so that they had ‘BMW drivers for life’. An admirable quest, but clearly complete bollocks.

I won’t be buying another BMW. Not now, not ever. I don’t imagine for a second that BMW will notice the difference but I will nonetheless exercise my right as a customer to take my money elsewhere. My perceptions of the brand have changed – for the worse. I’m going to be telling other people of my experience too, you’re reading this for example, and who knows, maybe that will influence the perceptions of others. One car buyer walking away (twice) from BMW is barely troubling, but if this experience is typical of the brand’s values, I don’t imagine it will be long before we’re all walking away. If I was the person responsible for maintaining the BMW brand reputation I’d be more than a little concerned.

The ‘Ultimate Driving Machine.’ Really? I don’t think so.

Scot McKee
Managing Director
Birddog Ltd.
+44 (0)20 7323 6666