Moving Beyond Consistency is the Key to Brand Success

The ancient Greek philosophers had it right when they implored us to “Know Thyself”. This is as true for a brand as it is for an individual. Truly understanding who you are at an emotional level as an entity, in this case a brand, and what you promise will mean that there will be a coherence in everything you do.

It also means that you can do away with the slavish application of consistency in the look and feel of your brand and you can tailor your messages to a wider range of increasingly fragmented audiences. To illustrate my point, think of Cate Blanchett. She never wears exactly the same thing all the time but you can instantly describe her style. And your brand is your style, not the clothes themselves.

Consistency of look and feel has long been king. I’ve spent the last ten years on both sides of the fence insisting upon absolute consistency of communications and design – but I now believe the timing is right for us to let go a little.

Consistency also worked for us because of the cost efficiency of recycling the creative idea across a number of media vehicles. Marketing departments had to justify large advertising budgets (usually based around big TV production and media spends), so often the creative material would be used across the multiple brands you had.

Our customers were much easier to target with traditional mass media, which meant that this religiously consistent work was accepted – and it was effective. Back then.

Today, the communication landscape looks very different.

Consistency is virtually impossible with the increasing number of communication channels and those ever-shifting, fragmenting audiences. Today, customers are congregations of like-minded people, with no common language, geographical, demographical, age or gender boundaries who are multi-channel users. They are also becoming more and more successful at filtering out information that doesn’t ring true for them.

So while consistency of look and feel becomes less important, the authenticities of the brand message and the emotion or promise that message delivers becomes more and more crucial. You don’t need the logo in the same place and size, the consistency comes in how the brand acts and what the brand actually does.

To talk to these congregations authentically, I feel we might need to loosen our collective stronghold on look and feel and give them a context through which they can understand our story in their own way.

We’re talking about Virgin again
Virgin is so different across so many markets – from planes to mobile phones – but in all cases, the heart of the Virgin brand promise remains the same. Each element of Virgin is different, but the consistency of the brand lies in their context – the emotion attached to all of their products and services. When you’re buying from Virgin, you know what to expect from every touch point.

They’re completely inconsistent in their communication – they’re always trying new ideas and launching new products and services – but there’s still the context of Virgin attached to everything they do.

As a client, sometimes consistency is seen as a triumph over chaos. But now, we need to accept that it’s ok for a brand to be in chaos if the emotional promise or message is coherent. If the context is there and coherence is there, it doesn’t matter what it looks like the takeout will be the same.

What are you hiding?
I have often seen clients hide behind consistent looking marketing communications. Sometimes it’s easier to be visually consistent than really taking the time to explore the DNA of your brand. But trust me, even if your message is visually consistent, the logo is in the right place and in the right colours with the right headline and supporting copy, it still needs the context of your organisation’s values and the emotional elements to make sense for customers.

Exploring a multi-agency approach
I am a big believer in collaboration across agencies. Not every agency will express your brand in the same way, but then nor do you customers think the same way.

If you, as a brand manager, can let go of the need for absolute consistency, a more collaborative approach with your agencies may just be an effective way of creating ideas that will let you engage in a genuine way with your consumers.

As a marketer, you want your agency partners focused on your business, and not focused on fighting off attacks from the other agencies in the mix. Hashem Bajwa, Digital Strategy Director at Goodby Silverstein & Partners in San Francisco says, "you want the best possible creative talent, and that means listening, learning, experimenting and collaborating together. It also means giving them the trust and clear stewardship they need to do brilliant work."

True brand success is achieved when, irrespective of language, culture or historical background, a diverse range of individuals can articulate what you stand for. It doesn’t matter what your message looks like, who’s saying it or what medium it’s coming through – the brand’s authenticity will shine through.

2 seconds before midnight

Everything we consider traditional media was invented in the last 2 seconds before midnight (if you condense all history into a single day) — June Cohen, TED Media, speaking at Le Web conference

I had the pleasure of meeting the wonderful Lynette Web when I was in London. Her interesting snippets are inspiring. You can catch her stuff here.

Can innovation prevent a looming recession?

Another great article from Adrian Ho at Zeus Jones.  I am sure my very good friend Hashem at GSP would agree.  They key, I believe, as Adrian has clearly stated is: 

"Create excitement around the marketplace of marketing channels by innovating".

You can read the article here.

coherence and context

More and more I am realising my function in the organisation is to provide two key roles. One of context (why, at a group strategic level we are doing what we do, and how that will impact everyone in the company) and one of coherence (how the multitude of messages and actions give the people that buy our products clarity around who we are, no matter how they interact with us).

One of my mentors, Joe Plummer, a truly brilliant and funny man, talked to me at length about the importance, not of consistency, but coherence. Only now as a client am I beginning to really get it.

It's been a silly week work wise. I am off to the US and Europe next week for five weeks and plan to write a lot more. I am also very happy to have a real Thanksgiving with friends and loved ones in NYC.

Measurement

I have just come back from Sydney where I was attending the NINEMSN digital summit. Interesting stuff. One thing I did take note of was the many conversations around measurability of media spend. Sure we have all talked about it before, but this time it seemed different.

This is something that I have been thinking of a lot lately given I have begun to reduce my media and agency spend, but still want the same, if not more. I cannot, any longer, approve large media buys without solid quantification.

I am very aware now that marketing is becoming more strategic to our organization. First and foremost I am being asked to improve revenue generation, decrease costs and reduce marketing waste.

I read recently that by 2012, the role of the CMO will shift from one of creative brand builders to one of accountable, business oriented strategic managers with customer loyalty as their main focus.

I have more meetings these days with the CFO than I do with any other “C” in the company.

Very different from a couple of years ago.

Who's creative is it anyway?

My wonderful friend Hashem at GSP pointed out this article from Adweek around how creative differences came between Motorola and their agency. I think it also talks to how the various Motorola marketing groups came between themselves and used the agency as the scapegoat.

Check out this link: Moto Magic from Adweek. Below you will find the TVC in question.

It’s all about the Mojo

To many agency and marketing communication types, a good client is one that spends a bucket load of money and gets out of the way so they can work their magic.

While that may be the dream of the wishful, years of experience have shown that this type of client/agency relationship rarely produces the best results. If it did, the Darwinism of business evolution would have selected it long ago.

Truly great advertising is almost always the result of the friction caused when inspired creativity hits the boundaries of a well-defined, clear business vision.

To get to this nirvana, however, requires both sides of the fence to understand their role. For us as clients, its all about creating the right mojo.

Being on the agency side for many years, I keep a list of what good client mojo looks like. To have a fruitful and satisfying relationship you may wish to consider following the rules;

(a) Great clients love and understand the role of communications - don't feel you're too important to get involved in any part of the process
(b) Appreciate all stages of the creative process. It takes time and patience and a lot of sweat to come up with a great idea
(c) Challenge agencies to be great and let them challenge you to be great
(d) Be consistent in your expectations, criteria and direction. Agencies write advertising first and foremost to suit a client's personality
(e) Know what they're talking about; understand the agency’s business as well as your own. No agency really wants to BS the client; but they don't really want to have to be constantly answering stupid questions
(f) As a client, appreciate research but don't let it be your master
(g) Acknowledge and reward, emotionally and financially great work

I also kept a list of what bad client mojo looks like. If you really want to push your agency over the edge, here are some top tips:

(a) Don’t have a clear idea of why anyone should buy your product – expect the agency to figure it out
(b) Make love to the agency one day to get their best and brightest but consider it a point of pride to screw them financially when it comes to remuneration
(c) Send too many people to the briefing sessions and make sure the list of people that have to approve work is long
(d) Think and act like ordinary people to lull the agency into a false sense of security and then demand that brand advertising has lots of elements that will only appeal to your industry insider mates.
(e) Presume that everyone wants to listen to you, so you don’t have to worry about how to really engage them
(e) Be untrustworthy. Don’t support your agency if there are any internal concerns from your bosses. Blame anything they don’t like on the agency and ignore the fact they were executing your brief.

Like all relationships the relationship between client and agency changes with time. Taking the time to understand each other and communicate will yield the best results. All successful relationships need effort to work and while sometimes it’s better to cut and run, working as one team from a place of mutual respect can produce some truly amazing work.

The core issue is that buying the services of an agency is not like buying new hardware, stationery or gum. You are buying ideas and ideas are funny things. If they are incubated in a warm environment of trust and respect, where people understand their roles and meet expectations, then you can create something pretty special.

That’s a whole other level of mojo.