Brand cathedrals

An interesting question popped up in a pub quiz this evening: which brand overtook Coca-Cola in 1996 to become the world's most recognised brand?

We worried over this particular bone ages, long after the answer papers had been collected. Clearly it would have to be a brand that was accessible across cultures and socio-economic backgrounds, which would rule out all luxury goods, probably including consumer electronics (so Sony, all the rage at the time with the CD Walkman and Playstation everywhere, were out). 1996 was pre-internet, so a few years too early for Yahoo! et al. We muttered about all the ubiquitous FMCG brands we could possibly think of, but in the end plumped for Nike. We were wrong (and kicked ourselves when we were told the answer*).

Talking of truly iconic brands, a couple of years ago, in full tour guide mode, I showed a Thai teenager around town along with her mother. I tried to pick a mixture of the obvious sights and one or two things off the beaten track, but there was only one thing she wanted to see above all else: that temple to the consumerist gods - the Apple store. Only in the last few months did I finally get around to going to there myself, along with another cathedral just a stone's throw away: Niketown.

Personally I found the Apple store oppressive, but then traditionally I've had slight Luddite tendencies. The store perfectly mirrors the brand's ideal: achingly trendy, lots of clinical-white space, enthusiastic staff showing the products off in all their glory. Yet I found the place wholly inadequate: I was there to buy a phone cover as a present, and received no help at all despite armies of blue-t-shirt clad staff. On going up to the counter to pay, I was expecting to have to be the subject of a battle between the half-a-dozen staff members there to process my purchase, but no: the sales counter upstairs doesn't sell anything, it's just yet another bench for them to show things off. The sales process takes place on the ground floor, hidden away at the back. For me the Apple store was just too sterile, and trying too hard for its own good, but the throngs of tourists flocking in would evidently disagree.

Niketown is another matter: it's basically a museum devoted to the brand. It's brilliantly done. Like Apple, they must be paying millions for the premium site, right on Piccadilly Circus, but it's the kind of place that raises brand equity just by being there. This one truly is a temple: come and worship decades of trainer history, along with a lot of neon lighting and various tempting "bespoke" offers. The biggest praise that I can pay the place is that I wandered around actually coveting their goods, nay lusting after them, which I didn't find with the Apple store. Nike has only been around since 1978 but they managed to create a sense of history dating back further than that; although to the teenagers who flood the place, 1978 probably feels prehistoric anyhow.

But can someone please explain to me what the M&Ms World in Leicester Square is about? I haven't managed to drag myself in, but surely four floors devoted to little glorified Smarties (in fact is there any difference?) doesn't sound inspiring. There has to be a reason to go there, and for the casual Leicester Square visitor, I would have thought a trip to the Ben & Jerry's cafe would make more sense. Or am I out of touch?

*The answer was McDonald's.

From Pizza Express to Starbucks: premium brands extend their options

The power of premium brands, eh. The other day, my girlfriend (who drives to work) and I were walking along the pavement when she grabbed my arm, turned towards a thirty-something power-dressing woman clutching a coffee, and muttered to me wistfully, "I wish I got the train to work in the morning, so I could clutch a Starbucks cappuccino on my daily commute."

Then, after a moment, a nervous laugh: "I got so carried away, I forgot I don't even like coffee!"

Transferring a successful restaurant brand into a supermarket staple, without losing brand values, is a tricky balancing act. Pizza Express have negotiated the tightrope well without losing their vision, even branching our into sundries such as dressing.

Rather surprisingly, Pizza Express feature in the "top ten most working class brands" as reported in a recent study by research/strategy agency Britainthinks which looked into the differences between a self-defined middle class and working class.

Interestingly, according to Britainthinks, 71% of Britons consider themselves middle class, although according to the National Readership Survey, 55% of the population would be defined as "middle class" according to the well established standard NRS social grading system.

The study reports some key findings differentiating attitudes between the self-defined middle and working classes, and some key traits of the working class: particularly interesting for me was the fact that the "working class" generally consider themselves "above" another class - the non-working class; and that television habits are distinctly different; the research living up to the cliché, the self-defined working class prefer soaps and reality TV, while the self-defined middle class are busy watching the Antiques Roadshow.

A side question here about methodology: were respondents asked at the beginning of the survey to define their class, and then asked questions subsequently? If so, I would suggest there might be a danger that respondents felt their answers should "conform" socially to their stated class. This might also help explain the clichéd cafetiere which was supposed to be the item that summed up the middle class (contrast a cringeworthy pair of workman's boots - dirty, of course - for the working class).

All the usual C2DE suspects are there - KFC, Iceland, The Sun - but celebrants of rocket and parma ham, Pizza Express sneak into the top ten. Deborah Mattinson of Britainthinks wondered if the launch of supermarket products might have had something with Pizza Express's new-found fame as a working class icon.

Marketing textbooks are littered with examples of brands launching in new markets, or launching new product lines, diluting their brand values, and losing brand equity as a result. Pizza Express took the gamble of launching into a crowded market with their supermarket pizzas and are seemingly as strong as ever; an even tougher challenge is faced by Starbucks, who launched their VIA instant coffee brand in the UK last year.

Where Starbucks lead in the social media space, others follow - their MyStarbucksIdea co-creation concept spawning hundreds of case studies across Slideshare - but, according to Starbucks head honcho Howard Schultz, instant coffee has been in the pipeline for twenty years (although I note that a caramel flavour has been introduced partly following a suggestion via the community).

Conventional wisdom suggested that a premium brand like Starbucks was taking a foolish risk by launching an instant product - I'm not so sure. There's a difference between "premium" and "only for special occasions"; Starbucks isn't the sort of brand they'd like to treat yourself to once a month - it's a brand that wants to be part of your daily routine, as my girlfriend proved. The middle class cafetiere cliché lifestyle without the washing up to go with it. More engagement with the brand (to go with your CD collection). Of course it's easy for me to say, a year after the brand was launched, safe in the knowledge that it's been immensely successful!

But how exactly do you launch a product like this into such a crowded space? The Internet Advertising Bureau have published a little case study video of an ad tracking study undertaken by GfK.



A promotional piece by the IAB it may be, but the research clearly shows an augmentation in reach with online advertising, and demonstrating the success that digital ads have in improving both product awareness (up 19% compared to the control group), and also brand favourability and purchase intent. Product awareness was already quite high amongst the target female audience, and with this group it was purchase intent which was boosted most. The video touched on the differences between portals (for high reach), lifestyle sites (where consumers are really engaged with the site, for a longer period of time) and social media; it was inferred that social media advertising gave the best value for money in terms of driving brand favourability and purchase intent for a low cost. Food for thought.

News of the World advertisers need to think less about facts, and more about perceptions

The public and political reaction to the News of the World phone hacking has been unprecedented. It's rare that the response to a political or media issue is so unanimous and hostile. While there is lots of hyperbole and hand-wringing, I feel this is one of those times where it is entirely justified. Vince Cable must be feeling very smug at the moment. But brands who advertise in the paper will be nervously judging the mood and trying to work out what urgent changes they need to make to their marketing tactics.

Lot of research will be in progress at the moment to determine just how toxic an association with the NOTW actually is. In monetary terms, how does the loss of cash (from buying the ad space) and value generated by the advertising, weigh up against the loss of brand equity from the downturn in corporate reputation? As Keith Trivitt points out, brand reputations can take years to build but can be tossed away in a matter of days.

This research might be asking how seriously the whole episode is perceived; how the NOTW reputation has suffered; how consumers would be disposed towards brands who advertise in the NOTW; and, perhaps most importantly, to get a sense of how long this whole shitstorm will last for. My guess is that brands would be best advised to pull their ads from the NOTW with immediate effect, sit tight and monitor the situation in the coming days, and quietly carry on as normal after everything's blown through. The losses could be measured in the tens of thousands in most cases - chickenfeed to many brands. This can be offset by the uplift in brand equity as the result of a "good" (in the eyes of the Twittersphere) response.

Ford is a case in point. A solid, firm response was met with a positive reaction online, notwithstanding the point that their media buying agency, Mindshare, are simply putting more ads in the Screws' sister paper, The Sun. Other brands can minimise negative sentiment with decisive reactions. Yes, there is an argument against doing anything rash. But this is a world where "rash" and "social media" are bosom buddies.

The Co-Operative would do well to learn that. Contacted early for a reaction, a spokesman gave the rather blunt reply, "These are allegations. We have no plans to withdraw our advertising."

This was badly misjudged for several reasons. Firstly, they badly judged the prevailing wind. I have never seen a social media backlash as savage and prolonged as this one (most flare up and die down in a few hours). Next, the Co-Op's brand is built on a central platform of an ethical stance. If you shout loudly about "taking ethics to the next level" then the last thing you want to be doing is letting people actively associate you with such a putrid affair. To repeat the point: brand reputations are built carefully over a period of years...why throw it away? Thirdly, the fact that at the time they were only "allegations" is neither here nor there as far as the brand is concerned. A brand is simply "a collection of perceptions in the mind of the consumer" according to Nigel Hollis. That's all; just a set of whims, visions, discernments, not rational but only in our minds. The Co-Op does indeed have a strong brand identity, but given that that identity itself is irrational, why justify the marketing tactics with such a wooden, rational response? It sounded as if the Co-Operative were trying almost to stick up for the Screws - I can think of no logical reason why. It is instructive to note that apparently more tweets were sent to the Co-Op on Tuesday than to any other NOTW advertiser.

As for the loss in revenue, there is likely to be a short term downturn in readership. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised if there were a lot of people who went to the NOTW site to take a sneaky look (I must confess to this) only to be knocked back by the paywall. So online traffic is unlikely to pick up in the short term. Inevitably, it leaked out that Ford's media agency, Mindshare, had just transferred their ads into the Sun; brands which take that risk (or indeed any Murdoch title) should be poised to drop that hot potato at short notice depending on what unveils in the next few days. The situation continues to develop at volcanic pace.

One interesting side note from a social media perspective is the lack of propagation of opinion from Twitter through to Facebook. I follow a variety of people on Twitter across marketing, research, social media, political, musical and theatrical circles, as well as a handful of local people, and at times nearly half of my Twitter feed has been part of the #notw feed. On Facebook, however, where I'm friends with 400 people in a balanced cross-section of society (OK, I know, I would say that) there was almost no sign.

Most importantly of all, has this rage extended offline? As I type, a feature on Today asks residents of a London estate, who buy the NOTW, their opinions. Based on a convenience sample of course, and unscientific in every way, but all the people spoken to thought the behaviour was "disgusting" or similar, while several said they wouldn't buy the paper at the weekend (although one said she still would). They weren't asked about the brands, so advertisers will have to await the results of their questionnaires to determine the likely loss in brand equity.

Finally, a few articles to read: some fantastically savage vitriol and anti-Murdoch hostility from Peter Oborne, Matthew Norman and Damien Thompson. The coverage in Marketing Week, spearheaded by Lara O'Reilly, has also been excellent.

Decision making (1)

For several weeks I've been making painfully slow progress through Francesco Nicosia's classic work from the 60s, Consumer Decision Processes. It's an academic work in a field where I have no formal training, so I'll forgive myself the slowness, although to be fair my eyes occasionally glaze over when reading it on the Overground after a long day at work.

I've still got a long way to go on it (estimated finish time: 2013) but although it's not always edge of the seat stuff (by page 80 the reader has just been informed that a decision starts with a goal and ends with an act) it is a carefully constructed breakdown of how decisions might work. Nicosia reviews the existing literature but it was the ideas of Paul Lazarsfeld that grabbed me.

Lazarsfeld's scheme, from 1935, basically postulates that at time T you have an individual with feelings or situations I(T) in his environment E(T). The environment acts on those feelings and situations, and helps shape them in turn. Of course, only relevant environmental concerns will have any effect on the individual.

For example, E could be anything from some word of mouth, to a change in personal circumstances, to an ad, to a change in product availability, to an event, to a product attribute. So E feeds into I, which in turn is changed, so another "set" of environmental variables will come into play, and so on in a constant iterative process, until the individual preferences reach a critical point leading to some tangible action, and the decision is made. It sounds lovely and simple, but the key point is that all these variables play off one another; so one particular variable will only have an effect on, or be relevant to, another variable depending on what stage of the process you are at.

I feel the marketing implications of this scheme are clear. Imagine first the universe of individual variables (circumstances, opinions and so forth), alongside the universe of environmental variables. The trick is to draw up some sort of infinite Venn diagram, and work out which variables interact with which other variables, and under what circumstances. The marketeer can then consider which of those variables he has control of, and apply them at the appropriate point in the decision process. But the hard bit is realising that each individual circumstance will be different; so are there patterns, or general rules, that can be drawn - and indeed are the decisions that are being taken to purchase the product in question the same or different?

Of course the environmental variables such as product attributes themselves are not constants; because it's the subjective opinion on product benefits that matters. Which neatly ties in with what Ward Edwards and others were looking at in the 50s (my progress through Nicosia is supersonic compared to the rate I'm reading Amos Tversky-edited Decision Making!) I won't pretend to know anything at all about microeconomic theory, but the key to "utility curves", marginal utility and a value-to-cost ratio is that the value or utility of a product is subjective. Even something like price is subjective; the perceived cost is more important than the actual cost when it comes to decision making.

"CoolBrands" - a worthless exercise?

A company called The Centre for Brand Analysis have published a list of the top 20 coolest brands.

It has gained extensive coverage as far-reaching as The Drum and the Telegraph, while Marketing Week also got in on the action. I have commented extensively on the Marketing Week website so won't repeat myself, but suffice to say that it comes across as a very flaky piece of research. There's precious little available on their methodology, but what there is doesn't inspire confidence. How can you quantify "coolness" into a list format anyway?

The Marketing Week article is here.

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Update, September 2011: a year on, and the exercise has been repeated. It's still fluff, but it got Aston Martin trending on Twitter, so it's fulfilled all its objectives, I suppose.

Which is about racial distribution, Monet and "neuromarketing"

I'm quite particular in who I follow on Twitter, and who I place on lists. I regularly cull anyone who tweets too much, or tweets rubbish, or is overly self-promotional, or just links to stuff that I don't find personally interesting. On the flipside, it means I get to read a lot of really interesting content. This week I've come across some more really interesting articles.

At the moment, my entire reading list (books not blogs!) seems to be based on Mark Earls's bibliography. I'm still ploughing my way through the latter chapters of Thomas Schelling's Micromotives and Macrobehaviour. It's quite pedestrian in style, but methodical and quietly brilliant. Basically it's a calm, rational, statistically-orientated study on the way small personal preferences - just a few per cent here and there - can result in major changes in group outcomes. There are numerous studies, all carefully argued step-by step without any QED flourishes (but then who needs flourishes when you've got a Nobel Prize to your name). The most famous chapter is the one where a simple home-made experiment (you can do it too: all you need is a few coins and a chessboard) demonstrates how very small preferences to have some of your own kin around you, end up in quite stark racial segregation across cities.

It's all very well seeing pictures in a book of what look like noughts and crosses, and as a reader you nod your head and say "how shocking"...but, living in "multicultural" London, where it feels like people of all different colours are jumbled up together, complete racial segregation feels a long way away. I suspect it can't be all that different in the States, either; which is why these new graphics of racial distribution by location are all the more startling.

I'm just beginning to dabble a little in reading around some psychology and neuroscience pieces at the moment, and having been just a few weeks ago to a superb Impressionist exhibition, I found this New Scientist article offering a possible explanation to why the Impressionists are so popular: basically the lack of detail means that our own imaginations are stirred into "filling in the gaps", while our subconscious locks onto blurred images with greater intensity than we might do otherwise. Fascinating stuff.

The same magazine has been causing a bit of a stir recently with its highly publicised experiment to pick the best front cover based on a neuroscience experiment. The neuromarketing claims have caused a bit of a stir with both scientists and neuroscience-focussed market researchers; even Derren Brown picks up on it, and links to this interesting article. Meanwhile, Robert Bain on Research Live presents the story against the background of other neuroscience/marketing issues, and gives a thoughtful and balanced analysis of some of the techniques availale right now. Peter McGraw, on the other hand, is much more sceptical.

Tapping into our natural instincts is nothing new. In Ogilvy on Advertising, David Ogilvy explains that the average person looks at an ad for 0.9 seconds, their eyes sweeping from top left to bottom right. (Eye tracking seems more interested in web design applications these days - plenty of interesting stuff out there to read on the web like this article). While advertising agencies and branding consultancies are obsessed with wanting to portray themselves as "different" (there are some truly gruesome straplines but perhaps the most vomitworthy is BBH's "when the world zigs, zag"), surely the aim of most marketers should be to discover scientifically what their best practices should be, and find out evidentially how people respond to certain situations, and act accordingly.

One or two people are muttering darkly about the ethical considerations of neuromarketing. It's a fair point. There's something slightly subversive about much of this, a little like subliminal advertising (a concept which I don't have a great deal against personally). My own take is that neuroscience probably has a lot to offer when it comes to trying to unravel subconscious decisions made by consumers, particularly at point of sale. There's probably a lot of very interesting research that can be done into packaging and logos, for example, based on brain activity, which might explain a shopper's instinctive decision to choose one washing powder over another, particularly on occasions where their usual brand is out of stock and they are relying purely on instinct. As for New Scientist? As Peter McGraw points out, it's a shame that the tree covers couldn't have all been put on sale, to add some real-world data to the lab experimental data. There are loads of great articles out there at the moment, fascinating stuff.

As a postscript, I'm slightly regretting climbing down on my last blog post. I honestly think that anyone who's happy to spout the unverified "research" claims of vitamin supplements on the whim of a PR company but not realise that they're apparently endorsing the product - especially where children are the topic of conversation - deserves both barrels. However, it reads better as it is now, and there's no point in dragging something out.

Millward Brown's Nigel Hollis - The Global Brand: a review

The majority of books I've ever read on branding are mostly vacuous bullshit. Top of the pile for guff to substance ratio is possibly Kevin Roberts' Lovemarks, crammed full of nebulous, sweeping soundbites, whereas the only meaningful point in the entire book was summed up beautifully in a single "love/respect axis" graph. Most other books on branding that I've come across are written in a similar vein.

It's refreshing, therefore, that The Global Brand, by research giant Nigel Hollis of Millward Brown, is completely different: a rigorous study of branding concepts, similarities and differences between consumer behaviours globally, and the business and marketing strategies required to take advantage of these, in order to expand brands internationally.

I should point out that I am definitely not the target audience of this book, not being in charge of global marketing strategy for a major international brand! The book provides a very specific "brand promise" of how to expand a successful brand into the global market, but in reality the book covers concepts that are pretty universal to branding and marketing, making it a cracking read for anyone interested in the way fluctuations in consumer behaviour affect the performance of a brand or product.

Hollis takes a methodical approach from first principles from the start: starting by making an empirical definition of a brand (concluding that a brand is a macroscopic collection of perceptions of a product). Key to his ideas are principles of neuroscience - the way that the brain stores information, breaking it down into knowledge, actions and feelings critical to the way marketers can set up their brands. Hollis shows that consumers' balanced understanding of a brand is crucial to its success: consumer reactions or heuristics to physical cues, functional benefits, an the emotions the brand invokes, are all important features, and a successful brand is likely to be positioned in such a way that all those features strike a bond with the consumer. It seems to me that this holistic approach fits in with the trend for "360" marketing. Hollis says that brands are "clusters of associations" - and a successful brand must work equally hard to enhance the perceptions of all the advantages that brand can derive.

Consumer/brand relationships are dealt with in depth - whether it's the split second heuristics which can sway a customer from purchasing one product over another, to more deeply rooted loyalty. The Millward Brown Brand Pyramid defines the relationship as a sort of journey consisting of heuristics from the superficial (is the product available? Can I afford it?) to the more profound (being unique, or safe, or "for people like me"). The strongest bonds are forged when the consumer feels that there are tangible advantages to choosing that brand which overcome any shortcomings or competitors. If the aspects of a brand which create the strongest bonds could be neatly scooped up and taken across international markets, then global domination would soon ensue. Alas, it's not quite so simple as that.

Hollis goes on to show that a brand's future performance can be predicted by using two measures - existing brand presence, and a Millward Brown metric called Voltage 2.0, calculated using quantitative research, which is basically an indication of how strong the brand's perceived advantages are (I imagine a brand with high Voltage 2.0 would be very similar to Kevin Roberts' definition of a Lovemark). Combined, the two figures give a reasonably good forecast of the brand's likely future prospects; good brand equity is a good sign, but startup brands find it tough going as you might expect.

So far so good, and I found these early chapters amongst the most interesting of all. But the objective of the book is to explore how brands across multiple countries, and here Hollis states his core point, which is repeated throughout like an idee fixe: that successful global brands achieve a fine balancing act between adapting products and marketing strategies specifically to local markets, vs global economies of scale arising from centralising resources. Those that get the balance right, will become the great global brands which "transcend cultural origins" to strike affinity with consumers across countries. But it's a tricky balance to achieve. In developing markets, a western brand may or may not have associations of quality, which consumers may or may not be willing (or able) to pay a premium for. Yet in general consumers will feel more attached to brands which are perceived as local, even if their origins are the other side of the world.

Hollis stresses to brand owners the importance of considering how their brand can create a feeling of authenticity, of resonating with local values, and of integrating with local culture. Much of this, he argues, stems from management technique: indeed management is a microcosm of the book's theories as a whole - as a global company tussles with the advantages of centralising resources, with the local knowledge and motivation that comes with localising functions (I must confess I ploughed through this section full of visions f American films with the FBI telling the local sheriff "We'll take it from here.")

Hollis cites the example of Efes lager, which has such a strong local identity in its homeland (Turkey) that no other brands can get a look in. This, in turn, is due to the company being involved in external projects, CSR if you like, to become a strong part of local culture. Then there is the example of American car manufacturer Buick, which despite being a rather tired brand in the States, was careful to adjust to local tastes when launching in the Chinese market - with highly successful results. These are but two of the case studies which bring the concepts to life bring the theories to life. I wasn't aware of Red Bull's origins as a Thai drink "discovered" and "reinvented" by an Austrian businessman - whose positioning of the brand has barely been changed since. The brand stuck to their principles, hardly amending their product or target market - and also marketing - even when they spread geographically.

My favourite chapter isn't actually penned by Hollis at all. How strong global brands create lasting value is contributed by Joanna Seddon of Millward Brown Optimor and is perhaps the densest chapter of all. The first diagram is pretty clear though: if the share prices of brands are normalised as of 1995 and then traced over time, dividing brands up as "strong" or "weak" according to global MB "BrandZ" data (another metric, this time based on surveys inviting respondents to directly evaluate brands). The strong brands outperform the weak ones by 20%, by virtue of a larger customer base, commanding price premiums and holding a stronger position in the business market; this, in itself, should give the willies to any board or directors who underestimate the importance of their brand strength. Seddon argues that a tangible value can be put on a consumer brand as opposed to its parent company, by a combination of splitting up the company's assets by brand, working out to what extent the brand's equity strength fuels the financial value of those assets (in other words, how important are those heuristics to the brand's value?) and applying a calculation to predict future performance (called, naturally enough, "brand momentum"). Everyone loves a "top 20" and indeed there it is (for the greedy, the appendix has the top 100) and all the usual suspects are there, but what is striking is that FMCGs are relatively low in number in the top echelons. This equating of an intangible asset like a brand, with some sort of strict financial value, is a bold one; the case is made compellingly.

Opponents of globalisation should stay right away from The Global Brand. It is unashamedly a manual for those wanting to sell western brands to consumers in developing countries. Although the importance of not riding slipshod over local cultures is touched upon, there is nothing at all on the ethics of globalisation itself - neither social nor environmental implications, which I thought was a shame, as it is otherwise a pretty comprehensive one-stop-shop for companies wanting to extend the distribution of their brand. Very occasionally Hollis comes across as slightly patronising, but in his defence, everything is steeped in facts gleaned from research, which may conform to stereotype in some cases. This also excuses the fact that the explanations of Millward Brown metrics can occasionally make it feel like a sales brochure - the fact that he uses his own examples for case studies and insight really manifests itself. It's real primary insight, and after all you might as well stick to what you know.

Hollis' clear enthusiasm for the subject matter, combined with his skills for bringing statistics to life, mean that this book, which is grounded in research-based insights, is a gripping read. The chapter on consumer behaviour in Africa, written by two local researchers, is not as eloquently written as Hollis' own work, but still conveys enthusiasm and includes some of the most interesting insights: from the concept of price - budgeting is something that is done day-to-day rather than month-to-month - to status of certain objects. I loved the anecdote of the Malawian who buys washing powder - which conveys greater social status - to place proudly on top of the washing machine; yet she also buys laundry bars, which she considers to work twice as well!

If I had any criticism it would be that the writing loses its sparkle when Hollis moves away from his core territory of insight and branding strategies and onto marketing tactics - it's clear that Hollis isn't a marketeer; the last few chapters of the book drag on a bit, and tend to repeat much of what was said earlier in the book. His principles are clear enough and enlivened by so many case studies that there's really no need to set out step by step instructions for what to do - Part Three is almost redundant.

Ultimately The Global Brand should have universal appeal - while it contains specific, practical instructions on how to evaluate the sustainability of a brand for global expansion, more generally it consists of convincing arguments for how to (and not to) extend the range of a campaign or business into new areas.

A great ad gets the intended message across...nothing more, nothing less

A few weeks ago The Guardian published their list of the best TV ads of the last 10 years. Naturally, it was a subjective list with a mixture of simplicity, trendsetters, beauty and humour (I'll leave that unedited; Christ, I just looked at what I wrote and it looks like I'm a bloody evangelist for the industry. Horrible). Many are memorable pieces of creative work. Many have inspired thousands of pub conversations. Many have won prestigious awards. But how many of them sold anything? Well, I imagine most of them did. But was it in the way they intended? More generally, how many got across the message that they were trying to convey?

A case in point is the Guinness ad. It conveys the idea of going backwards in time well enough, and has a catchy tune and a cute lizard at the end but...does it get the message across that Guinness is worth waiting for? I'd say not. Incidentally, I was hauled in off the street to an ad testing market research session. I told the at the time it was crap - but at least they listened to my impassioned plea not to use some godawful cliched bongo-heavy generic pan-African music, which (I wrote) conformed to a stereotype of ape-men roaming Africa (sorry, but the animated versions shown to us in the testing were really dire).

There are some decent ads in the Guardian's list and some mediocre ones but for me only the John Smith's ads, by TBWA, stand out - the simplicity and humour supporting a strong concept and strapline. W&K's beautiful creation for Honda was bound to create a lot of buzz (it did) and it a lovely creative piece too. Without that word of mouth factor, though, it would be ordinary. My own favourites of the decade, however, are not featured in that list.

I have three ads in particular that stand out. The first is a print ad from this autumn:

Dixons.co.uk - "The Last Place You Want To Go" (M&C Saatchi, 2009)
This ad, created by M&C Saatchi, is brilliant because the POINT of the message is brought across in such a powerful way. It's risky, it's cheeky, it's self-deprecating, but you "get it" straight away.

Comparing Dixons to Selfridges? John Lewis? Harrods? It's brilliant. It's the same principle that Ikea and Richer Sounds are built upon: our products are just as good as anyone else's, but we cut corners to cut prices. Nowhere is this message better spelled out than here. The point is got across vividly - Ryanair style. We are cheaper.

Smirnoff - Love (JWT, 2006)


My favourite ad of the decade - possibly my favourite ever. It's set up in true cinematic style, beautifully shot, etc etc. But none of that matters. What matters is that purely as a result of this ad, I find it impossible to think of the word "distilled" without instantly thinking "Smirnoff". JWT have earned their money on this one.

It's a simple advertising trick, but one that's so powerful: create a strapline, or even just a keyword, with which you want the product to be forever associated; then create an analogy, metaphor or pun to make the association. What's so great about "Love" is that throughout you're thinking what's the message here? And what are they trying to advertise? Then you think taking away the bad bits...sanitising...leaving only the sweet, demure original...AHHHHHH TRIPLE DISTILLED FOR PURITY. Then to hit you with the product, with which they're trying to associate exactly that message: brilliant. Just brilliant. Utter smackdown. Throw in the fact that it's a really, really sexy ad as a bonus, and it all ads up to one of the best bits of communication ever.

Tfl - Do The Test (WCRS, 2008)

I'll leave Paul van Veenendaal's ViralBlog to discuss the viral aspect of the marketing campaign for this road safety ad, but how brilliant is it as a creative piece of work? In exactly the same way as the Smirnoff ad, WCRS's "Do the test" takes a strapline and builds a fantastic metaphor around it. Then hits you in the stomach at the end with the strapline and "product". Again - smackdown. I was left reeling. The simple analogy is inescapable. You feel guilty. In fact, by missing the bear, you almost feel like you've killed a cyclist yourself.

Oh, and I still haven't met anyone who spotted the bear first time round. So it's doubly brilliant.