birddog

Brand Strategy & Services

A brand is a collection of perceptions in the mind of an audience. It’s not just a product or service that can easily be measured or touched. Nor is it just a logo or tactical campaign. Brand Strategy is the long-term management of perceptions and reputation. Building a brand is the ability to shape the perceptions of an audience – how and where they want to be communicated with – online, using existing, new and evolving digital channels.

The Birddog Brand Platform is a process of strategic consultancy and creative thinking applied to your brand, your business, your audience, your employees and markets. The outcomes are focussed messages that form a consistent brand story and a compelling way of telling it.

Some of the Things We Do:

Brand Strategy:

• Strategic Brand Consultancy
• Brand Strategy Planning
• Brand Audit & Analysis
• Competitive Positioning
• Audience-centric Brand Research (Primary & Secondary)
• Brand Workshop Facilitation
• Brand Promise
• Brand Values
• Brand Messaging
• Brand Narrative
• Brand Stakeholder Management & Training
• Brand Strategy Delivery
• Brand Guidelines
• Brand Adoption
• Brand Policing
• Regional Disparity Integration/Localisation
• Scaled Solutions – Local/National/Global

What to do next?

For full details of our services, contact Birddog. Not decided? Read the book first, then contact Birddog.

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

The BA Brand Up In Smoke?

I was a victim of the wholly unpronounceable Icelandic volcano eruption that shut the airports. I say ‘victim’, but it’s relative. There are worse places to be stranded than Arizona. Iceland for example. In reality, my discomfort was limited to the enforced rationing of underpants. The location in which I was stranded and the consequence of unexpectedly prolonged underpant usage is not, however, my point. I was surprised to find out how much reliance I placed on the brands I trusted and how well, or badly, they responded. It’s these formative experiences that shape an audience’s perception of a brand, so they’re important. Like pants.

My Flight was booked with BA. Any organisation that you enlist to carry you and your loved ones at a height of thirty thousand feet has to have a trustworthy and reliable brand. Despite industrial action a few days prior to our departure, our outward flight was unaffected and we had a great 2 week vacation.

The morning that we were due to fly back, my wife received an email from BA announcing that the Flight was cancelled due to the volcano. Not ideal, but at least we received the email. It offered no details about the eruptions, but gave 2 phone numbers (in the US and the UK) and directed customers to rebook their flights on the BA website. That was the ‘ordinary’ response to a cancelled flight but BA clearly didn’t have a plan for ‘extraordinary’ – certainly not one that they were able to share with me.

So with British airspace out of bounds, we were on our own and, basically, screwed. The BA website wouldn’t allow us to change flights and, contrary to the email, the website continued to show our flight as confirmed and checked-in. The UK number simply didn’t work and the US number provided an automated service to nowhere followed, intermittently, by a call-holding system. I’m not sure when the last time you were ‘on hold’ for 2 hours was, but you’ll appreciate that with two small kids in the room, a wife doing her nut and housekeeping banging on the door, it’s not good.

During the 13½  hours it took to get through to the call centre, and the subsequent eight days I had to wait in Phoenix for the return flight, I had time to reflect on the power of brand perception. My considered wisdom is this – it’s all in the mind. BA has spent millions persuading me to trust BA in preference to other brands. It worked, because that’s what I did. But it’s when the shit hits the fan that you really need to manage customer perception and brand reputation. Reputations that have taken years to build can be blown in an instant. Or 13½ hours.

I have no doubt that in the UK, the volcano, the closure of British airspace and the impact on the beleaguered BA share price was daily front page news, but in ‘Pleasant Valley’ Arizona (really) I think it would be fair to say no one gave a shit. I relied on web news, CNN, Twitter, texts and email from friends and colleagues. The news was patchy and unreliable (often conflicting) but it was better than nothing, which is exactly what I received from BA. BA is the one brand that I should have been able to rely on for relevant, timely and accurate customer information. Oops.

The very reason that companies invest in their brands and the supporting digital channels of communication is to shape perceptions in the minds of their audiences. Brands aren’t ‘things’, brands are what people, customers, ‘think’. Brands are the experiences people have and the stories, like this one, they tell other people. In our digital world, those stories can travel a long way. Further than Pleasant Valley. BA fundamentally failed to manage my customer experience and, in the absence of any other input, they have allowed me to form my own perceptions of the brand. So that’s what I’ve done. My perception of the BA brand is now permanently and indelibly etched in my mind.

Does BA still have a brand? Yes, but it no longer has the value or values that are important to me. The trust is gone and without it… well, a plane ticket I can buy from anyone.

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