Thoughts on innovation, product development, engineering, and industrial design

Monday, March 10, 2008

The Four Stages of a Lifestyle Brand

We define a lifestyle brand as one that differentiates itself based on the collective values, ideas and beliefs of the people that buy it. This is in contrast to brands based on value, performance, or other price/feature-based differentiators. In other words, you buy a lifestyle brand because you feel like you belong to the same tribe. Value, performance, and other considerations matter, but they aren't dealbreakers or dealmakers.

Good examples of lifestyle brands are things like fashion, sports, cars, and other categories where people have a deep emotional connection to the product. Most lifestyle brands are built on self-expression. In theory anything can be a lifestyle brand, but in practice it's difficult to build a lifestyle brand around a category that people not inclined to think of as a means of self-expression like paper towels, house paint, or ceiling fans.

In any case, lifestyle brands follow a four-stage evolution during their lifecycle that we've outlined below. Click the image to view it larger, or download a PDF here.


Stage 1: Core
At this stage, the brand is by the core, for the core. It's small, but growing. It's relatively easy to create and manage a brand at this stage because the competition is so unsophisticated.
Core: Small group of passionate  consumers who evangelize
Mainstream: Unaware
Market size: Very Small
Marketing: Word of mouth, events, online
Examples: Skateboarding in 1992

Stage 2: The Next Big Thing
This is the most critical stage, where lifestyle brands ultimately live or die. At this point, the brand is as big as it can get within the core, and needs to crossover in order to continue growing.
Core: Nearly universally popular among  core consumers. Community  rallies behind the brand to help it grow.
Mainstream: Early adopters and influencers  start to spread the word, but still  relatively unknown.
Market size: Small-Medium
Marketing: Word of mouth, specialty media
Examples: Ultimate Fighting Championship

Stage 3: Crossover Success
This is the sweet spot for a lifestyle brand. It mostly retains the credibility it had during Stage 1 and 2 while broadening its market substantially. Some loss of credibility is inevitable, though.
Core: Growing skepticism. Has mostly  moved on to a new, core brand  (Stage 1) that feels more authentic  to them.
Mainstream: Enthusiastically embraces the  brand. Feels like they're part of  something new and cool.
Market size: Large
Marketing: Mass
Examples: Kevin Smith movies

Stage 4: Sellout (Optional!)
Most, but not all, lifestyle brands eventually end up as Sellouts. They've gotten too big, made too many compromises, and eroded their brand too much. It doesn’t have to happen, though!
Core: The brand is completely  discredited with the core. They  wouldn't buy it if their lives  depended on it.
Mainstream: All but the slowest laggards have  moved on to the next crossover  (Stage 3) brand.
Market size: Small
Marketing: Mass, if any
Examples: Bam Margera

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posted by Finn McKenty at 2:56 PM 0 comments

Thursday, September 06, 2007

Ice Cream!

Living in Ohio, I'm lucky enough to have two great ice cream companies in my backyard. Graeter's and Jeni's can both serve up an impressive treat, but this is a tale of two brands. Graeter's is a family-owned, 137-year old ice cream parlor that serves up classic flavors, best known for enormous chunks of soft chocolate in each scoop. Jeni's challenges the norm, with 15 seasonal flavors (and 9 signature ones) including Ohio sweet corn with blackberries, Thai chili, and coriander with fresh raspberry sauce.

Graeter's has spent many years perfecting their classic flavors. The equivalent of your grandmother's pie or your mom's fried chicken, it's so good it connects with people on an emotional level. Customers relax as they enter the old-fashioned ice cream parlors, knowing that they're about to be comforted by something special.

While sweet corn ice cream may not be for everyone, creativity and invention are major elements of the Jeni's brand. One anticipates the surprising new flavors they'll sample each time they visit. Not only is it a delicious and exciting experience, it's a smart business move on their part. Unlike most ice cream brands, Jeni's understands that it would be impossible to make a better black raspberry chip than Graeter's 137-year old version. Instead, Jeni's focuses on giving its customers a dynamic experience that keeps people coming back for more. Because of their differences, there is room in the ice cream market for both of these brands to be successful.

If you're making ice cream, you need eggs, milk, cream, and sugar. If you're going to sell it, you'll need to understand how you can be unique.

photo courtesy of Apartment Therapy

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posted by Michael at 8:31 PM 1 comments

Saturday, July 28, 2007

Back from YPulse Mashup

Demetrius and I spent a few days in San Francisco last week attending the 2007 YPulse Mashup. In the words of YPulse founder and organizer Anatasia Goodstein:
The 2007 Mashup is produced by Ypulse, the leading independent blog for youth and teen media and marketing professionals and Modern Media, which builds, produces and markets highly-engaging business events for leading media brands and media entrepreneurs.

We had a great time, and learned a lot. The two-day event was divided up into a variety of lectures, panels, and roundtable discussions, all centered on how teens are talking and living online. We don't do a lot of interactive work, but we do work on tons of products for Gen Y consumers, and we figure that we need to have a detailed understanding of their world- and online is definitely a huge part of that.

One of the most interesting pieces was the teen entrepreneurs panel, featuring half a dozen teenagers that founded companies like myYearbook, Emo Girl Talk, and Scriptovia. They offered As I suspected, the teen panelists all said that they use email exclusively for business communication, and use MySpace, Facebook, or texting for personal communication. You can read more details on that at the Yahoo recap of the panel.

Other interesting pieces of the conference included Melanie Strong, US brand manager for Nike iD discussing their online strategy and Nike iD's role within the company's portfolio as a whole; an "Old School to New School" panel featuring representatives from various old-school print empires like Harper Collins and Hearst talking about their transition to online presences; and the keynote the discussion on "convergence culture." It's way too much to summarize here, but if you subscribe to the YPulse podcast, I'm sure there will be some clips up shortly.

Thanks for Anastasia at YPulse for putting together an amazing conference, as well as all the sponsors, panelists, and attendees that made it happen. We hope to be back next year!

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posted by Finn McKenty at 8:30 AM 0 comments

Friday, July 27, 2007

Ted: my kind of airline

I flew through Chicago today on my way home to Cincinnati, and got my first taste of Ted, United's newish spinoff. The verdict? It's a bold, captivating start down the path towards recreating the air travel experience.

The branding at the terminal was surprisingly fresh and engaging. I'd seen some of their print and online ads, but hadn't ever actually flown on the airline. First of all, the name "Ted" was a stroke of genius. Like BP's new branding, it puts a more human, accessible, and friendly face on the airline (something the industry as a whole is in dire need of), while still subtlely recalling the United name. Well done. It's all reinforced with nice environmental graphics that say things like "Ted's the name, smiles the game" and "Chicago is Ted's kind of town." The typography is just Helvetica 85 in white over solid yellow backgrounds, but I think that works, given the brand's down-to-earth, approachable, and straightforward character.







A few free-standing signs reminded everybody that "Ted is part of United." At first I thought this was too much, too obvious, but after thinking about it further, I realized that it's a great solution. They need United for the credibility that brand brings to the table, and they need to tie Ted to United somehow. Like the environmental graphics, these signs that simply state the facts are a great way to reinforce the character of the brand: why make it more complex than it needs to be? That kind of transparency is a welcome change of pace.

I'm excited to see some of these huge, old-school companies like BP and United begin to embrace more informal, fun, and accessible branding. The next generation of consumers responds best to this kind of communication. They're tired of stilted, phony, branding and marcom. They're engaged by brands that treat them as peers, with no hype, overstatement, or overt sales pitch. Ted is the beginning of an airline that fits into their world.

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posted by Finn McKenty at 8:05 AM 0 comments

Sunday, July 01, 2007

The inward-facing brand

Branding discussions usually focus on brands as they're perceived by consumers, but the truth is that the inward-facing dimension of a brand can be just as important.

First, let me define "brand." The best definitions I've come across are from Zag, by Marty Neumeier.

When a brand faces outward, it's...
A person’s gut feeling about a product, service or company.

When a brand faces inward, it's...
A strategic filter for questions like “What should we do? What should we make? Who should we make it for? Who should we hire? How should we behave?”

Companies that spend a lot of time, energy, and money on that second dimension of their brand are the ones that ultimately build the strongest brands. Consider two examples:

Apple
John Moore over at Brand Autopsy reports that Apple is giving an iPhone to all their full-time employees. He applauds the move as a brilliant piece example of "marketing to employees":
I am a huge proponent of companies spending marketing money on employees. It's simple. Astonish employees and they will, in turn, astonish customers.
Kinko's
While I'd argue that Kinko's brand isn't nearly as strong as it once was, I saw a lot of really effective internal branding efforts when I worked there about 10 years ago. One campaign in particular really stuck with me- in fact, it's my mantra for client relations to this day. The campaign said that the answer to any question from a Kinko's customer is always, "Yes- here's how." It's so simple, but so effective.

Going to a quick printer like Kinko's is oftentimes a frustrating experience. Sometimes it seems like getting the simplest things done there takes forever and means dealing with some jerk behind the counter that fights you every step of the way (recall the Chapelle Show sketch).

Printing is a pretty technical field with a lot of considerations, and customers often ask for things that aren't practical, but nobody likes to hear "no." That's why "Yes- here's how" was such a great piece of internal branding. Need business cards tomorrow? We can do that, here's how. Want 1000 color copies in two hours? I can make that happen, here's how. The "here's how" part usually means making some kind of compromise (like rush fees or using a pre-defined business card template rather than designing something from scratch), but that's fine- the ball is in the customer's court. If the customer decides against it, they're the one saying "no." You're an enabler, rather than the jerk in the Chapelle Show sketch.

Branding is a leadership challenge
Making a new identity, slogan, website, or other piece of consumer-facing branding isn't that hard. I'm not saying it's easy, but we know how to do it. The really hard part is getting everybody inside the organization to believe in it, to internalize it, and in turn evangelize it to the consumer.

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posted by Finn McKenty at 7:11 AM 0 comments

Monday, June 18, 2007

London 2012


Most of the time, the general public barely notices a new piece of graphic design. While the design community passionately discusses some new logos, the general public usually seems pretty ambivalent towards the subject. But recently the logo for the 2012 Olympics in London, designed by Wolff Olins, received major criticism from the public.

As design consultants, we have both an opportunity and a challenge to affect change through our clients' projects. We must balance what is best for their business with what is right for the end users of the design.

It will be unfortunate to see a piece of graphic design outshine the other aspects of the London Olympics. The athletes and the host city should define the brand, while the logo serves as a marker that represents the experience. Its unfair for a logo to dictate the Olympic brand, and I hope to see some amazing athletic performances that make this graphic unremarkable by comparison.

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posted by Michael at 9:05 PM 1 comments

Monday, May 21, 2007

Defining "Brand"

The truth is that contemporary thinking about branding is still in its infancy in most organizations. Somewhere along the way, we decided that "brand" was synonymous with "logo." In reality, though, the logo is only one piece of the puzzle.

Basically, "brand" is just another word for "reputation," and "brand management" just means carefully managing all the consumer touchpoints. It's not quite as mysterious and sexy as the jargon we might be used to hearing, but it makes a whole lot of sense. For example, we don't typically think of manufacturing as a core piece of the brand, but why shouldn't it be?

For Dell, lean manufacturing is the foundation of their brand, not their logo or the design of their computers. They leveraged their incredible supply chain management expertise to create an incredibly powerful brand built on customization and brought to life as one of the first large-scale companies to offer custom-built PCs.

On the other hand, consider how manufacturing and supply chain management work as branding in the video game console world. When a new console launches, it's usually pretty hard to find one for the first few weeks. This is a good thing when it creates demand and a premium position for the brand, but not if it lasts too long! Scarcity turns against the brand if parents begin to associate it with frustrating wild goose chases all over town during the holiday season.

The list could go on forever, but you get the point. Of course the logo matters, and of course a unique visual identity for your brand is a valuable asset, but don't stop there. Think about expressing your brand across every consumer touchpoint, from chemistry to the people that drive your delivery trucks.

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posted by Finn McKenty at 1:35 PM 1 comments

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Salesforce.com's Ticker Symbol as Branding

One of the most clever, fun, and free pieces of branding comes courtesy of Salesforce.com, makers of leading customer relationship management (CRM) software. If you're like me, and aren't an expert on CRM, check out this demo of their app suite for some background on their offerings. It's a little stuffy, but appropriate for the space they're playing in.

In a brilliant move, Salesforce.com took "CRM" as their stock symbol, instantly positioning themselves as quite literally synonymous with CRM itself. What I like about this is that the Salesforce.com team looked at something as mundane and unsexy as their ticker symbol as an opportunity to say something about the brand, to make a positive impression on the viewer. This kind of attention to detail tells you something about the people behind the stock symbol: they care, and they want you to know it. And what's more important to potential customers than seeing passion?

A brand is much more than just a logo, a tagline, or a color palette. It's the sum total of the consumer's reaction to every touchpoint surrounding your product, service, or idea. Think about what aspects of your organization can become jewels of branding like this. Go beyond the obvious, and show your passion.

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posted by Finn McKenty at 8:22 PM 0 comments