Motorola's Blur & Brand Priority

By Marc H. Rudov

Preposterous Utterance

Almost nothing in business shocks me like a CEO stating, with all seriousness, that fixing his company's brand is not a top priority. Sadly, I hear this irresponsible refrain more frequently than you can fathom.

Such a preposterous utterance means, of course, that he consciously and willingly accepts customer confusion and a needlessly high cost of sales. Are you listening, boardmembers and shareholders?

On September 10, 2009, at GigaOM's Mobilize 09 conference in San Francisco, Motorola's co-CEO, Sanjay Jha, announced his company's new CLIQ wireless phone. According to a recent article in Fortune, the audience couldn't instantly grasp Jha's words: a monumental branding failure.

Two excerpts from Jessi Hempel's article, specific to CLIQ's branding failure, stand out for me:

• The mood quickly turned to disappointment. After describing two upcoming phones, [Sanjay] Jha demonstrated only one: a smartphone with a slide-out keyboard, a touchscreen, and software that pulls together different social-networking sites. If the device was cool-looking, the audience couldn't tell. It was barely visible in Jha's hand as he waved it aloft. Then, he announced the full name: Cliq with Motoblur. (It will be branded "Dext with Motoblur" outside the US) Huh? "So, is 'blur' the name of the phone or the software?" a woman in the back row asked. With so much riding on its new handsets, such confusion spells trouble for Motorola.
• Jha himself admitted it took analysts and reviewers more than 15 minutes before they understood the value of Cliq.

Overspending on Sales

Confusion. Taking more than 15 minutes (should be a maximum of 15 seconds!) to grasp a value proposition. My friends, these are the hallmarks of branding failure.

Why do CEOs make this fundamental branding error, over and over again? Three reasons: 1) ascribe low priority to branding, 2) myopic focus on product instead of value, 3) belief that salespeople will compensate for poor messaging (see Branding Basics).

In other words, CEOs who pay lip service to branding will inflate the cost of sales and consequently pay the price of lower profits.

Rx from The WhiteNoise Doctor™

Because Motorola didn't make branding top priority when introducing CLIQ, assuming gadgetry and hucksterism would carry the day, it has wasted more time and shareholder cash while its relevance dwindles further -- a Motoblunder.

Coincidentally, because blur and white noise are analogous, Motoblur will become an apt moniker for Motorola's future.

Let this be a lesson to any CEO who still believes that salespeople can sell confusion, that fixing his company's brand is not top priority.

About the Author

Marc Rudov, The WhiteNoise Doctor™, is a branding-strategy advisor, the creator of GutShare™, and an internationally known media personality.
www.MarcRudov.com | www.GutShare.com

Copyright © 2009 by Marc H. Rudov. All Rights Reserved.

Branding vs. Blending

By Marc H. Rudov

The Herd Mentality

My Cousin Vinny is one of the best movies of all time. Two college buddies, Bill Gambini and Stan Rothenstein, are arrested in Wazoo, Alabama, for a murder they didn't commit. Vincent Gambini (Joe Pesci), a lawyer-cousin from Brooklyn with no litigation experience, arrives in town with girlfriend Lisa (Marisa Tomei) in tow to defend and free the two boys.

Here's a snippet of dialogue between Vinny and Lisa, from when they first arrive in Wazoo:

Vinny: You stick out like a sore thumb around here.

Lisa: Me? What about you?

Vinny: I fit in better than you. At least I'm wearing cowboy boots.

Lisa: Oh, yeah, you blend.

Sound familiar? This social desire to blend, to fit in, not to stand out, is what has driven so much of our human behavior since childhood. The pressure to conform comes from parents, teachers, clergy, TV, magazines, bosses, movies, and each other.

Look at kids in school. They all feel pressure to dress the same; think the same; listen to the same music; and use the same, like, broken English. To a certain extent, kids never outgrow the herd mentality, as Vinny and Lisa's exchange above underscores.

When Barack Obama tossed the first pitch in 2009's All-Star Game, the fashionistas roundly bashed him for wearing "mom's jeans" instead of in-style, tight low-riders. To his credit, Obama reacted with indifference -- unusual because few people ever relish or take pride in standing out.

That's precisely why so many companies are stuck in the white noise, where one is indistinguishable from the other: CEOs project their personal fears of standing out, their personal desires to blend in, onto their companies' brands.

Rudov's Rule: You can brand or blend, but you can't do both. Make up your mind.

Rx from The WhiteNoise Doctor™

Every CEO must fight the "blending impulse" in himself and in his staff, because it will kill the brand. Branding and blending are mutually exclusive.

• Blend -- get stuck in the white noise -- if you want a high cost of sales and a long sales cycle
• Brand -- be a unique standout -- to close business quickly and cheaply.

It might rattle your comfort zone to stand out, but that's what it takes to win customers. So, are you branding or blending?

About the Author

Marc Rudov, The WhiteNoise Doctor™, is a branding-strategy advisor, the creator of GutShare™, and an internationally known media personality.
www.MarcRudov.com | www.GutShare.com

Copyright © 2009 by Marc H. Rudov. All Rights Reserved.

NBC's Brand: Clear as Mud

By Marc H. Rudov

Core Pillars

I've frequently stressed, and posted on MarcRudov.com, this maxim: If the brand is murky to employees, investors, partners, customers, and suppliers, they'll redefine it in whatever ways suit them -- killing revenues, causing wars between marketing and sales, and putting the CEO's neck on the line.

CEOs of large and small companies tell me that make-it-up-as-you-go-along branding is indeed one of their biggest headaches. It adds time and cost to closing deals. Alas, few try to fix it -- they just spend ever-more money on sales.

To wit: At a recent NBC press conference about Jay Leno's new TV show, Angela Bromstad, president of primetime entertainment, and Paul Telegdy, head of unscripted programming, couldn't articulate NBC's brand:

Paul Telegdy: "Well, that's something that we have spent a lot of research and focus on, in terms of core pillars on what is and where is it an NBC show. We refer to certain key identifying characteristics of NBC shows, that they be human first, deal with real people, people that our cast, our viewers identify with, that are fundamentally positive and that embraces our comedy brand but also, an optimism..."

Angela Bromstad: "The returning shows that we have sort of lived up to, that legacy that NBC has always stood for. I think we have fallen short in the past couple of years, and it is our goal to bring back those high-quality, sophisticated drama and comedies and a brand of alternative that fits into that."

Wha-a-a-a-t? Core pillars? I have no idea what all that gobbledygook means; neither did the execs uttering it nor the media professionals hearing it. This is no way to run a business.

Rx from The WhiteNoise Doctor™

The CEO must demand a unique, concise, compelling, gut-grabbing, memorable brand -- and make it priority #1, not delegate it and hope for the best.

NBC cannot define itself, as Bromstad and Telegdy proved. Why? Its brand's as clear as mud, and CEO Jeffrey Zucker's neck is on the line.

About the Author

Marc Rudov, The WhiteNoise Doctor™, is a branding-strategy advisor, the creator of GutShare™, and an internationally known media personality.
www.MarcRudov.com | www.GutShare.com

Copyright © 2009 by Marc H. Rudov. All Rights Reserved.

RadioShack in The Shack

areBy Marc H. Rudov

Cables, Parts, and Batteries

Ft. Worth-based RadioShack announced that it will rebrand itself simply as The Shack. Lee Applebaum, the company's chief marketing officer, called it a way of "contemporizing" perceptions of the brand:

"Our customers, associates, and even the investor community, have long referred to RadioShack as 'The Shack,’ so we decided to embrace that fact and share it with the world. The Shack speaks to consumers in a fresh, new voice and distinctive, creative look that reinforces RadioShack’s authority in innovative products, leading brands, and knowledgeable, helpful associates."

"We have tremendous equity in consumers’ minds around cables, parts, and batteries, but it’s critically important that we help them to understand the role that we play in keeping people connected in this highly mobile world. You will see a real focus on mobility and wireless products from leading brands in our new advertising."

There are comparisons between this situation and when Federal Express became FedEx -- because that's what customers called it. I disagree. FedEx had a strong, crystal-clear brand; nobody was confused about its value proposition; and there's no negative connotation with that moniker.

The Trash-80

The Shack's a different story. The Shack? Nothing positive or cool or unique or compelling or contemporary about it. When people referred to RadioShack as "the shack," it wasn't a compliment. Remember the company's PC, the TRS-80? People used to call it the Trash-80 -- also not a compliment.

So, just because lots of people are using a term, it isn't necessarily a good thing. What's critical is the image in their minds and the feeling in their guts when they invoke or hear or read a brand. The Shack? I think of junk. I feel like avoiding it.

Applebaum admitted that people currently associate RadioShack with cables, parts, and batteries. Whose fault is that? Applebaum's stated objective is to change that perception to one of mobility. How does rebranding each store as "The Shack" conjure mobility? It doesn't.

Rx from The WhiteNoise Doctor™

Everybody already knows the RadioShack name. OK, it's not a great name or currently a crystal-clear brand, but a familiar one. With some clever creativity, RadioShack could have become what the company wants it to be, needs it to be.

Instead, it has chosen to take a terrible name with a negative connotation -- The Shack -- and invest big bucks to make it into something powerful. It's putting itself inside a shack, where cables, parts, and batteries are luxuries.

That "fresh, new voice" you hear is just white noise emanating from a broken radio inside The Shack.

About the Author

Marc Rudov, The WhiteNoise Doctor™, is a branding-strategy advisor, the creator of GutShare™, and an internationally known media personality.
www.MarcRudov.com | www.GutShare.com

Copyright © 2009 by Marc H. Rudov. All Rights Reserved.

Branding Microsoft

By Marc H. Rudov

What Is Microsoft?

You are driving down a country road with a friend. A few hundred feet away, on the right-hand side, is a billboard. It doesn't grab your attention, breaking the cardinal rule of billboards.

As you edge closer, still unable to make out the message, you spot a suit-wearing crocodile chewing on a keyboard. To the right of this strange croc is a question: Trouble with your computer? Below that is the exhortation: Fix common PC problems in a few easy steps on your own.

Now, almost passing the billboard, you notice the Microsoft logo in the upper-left-hand corner. Across the top, on the billboard's other corner, is the registered trademark Your Potential. Our Passion®. What does that mean? Quizzically, you look at each other, shrug, and continue driving.

Is Microsoft, a $67B corporation, now a self-help center for diagnosing PC problems? What is Microsoft? You and your friend, based on this billboard's messaging, are clueless about the Microsoft brand and will remain so -- one, 10, and 1000 miles later. This is a gargantuan branding failure: a brand they can't understand is no brand at all.

Wasting Branding Dollars

I created this billboard from Microsoft's homepage to illustrate a key point: the same rule applies to a homepage and a billboard -- it must be crystal-clear in 15 seconds. Is Microsoft's brand unique? No. Crystal-clear? No. Compelling? No. Gut-grabbing? No. Concise? No. Memorable? No. Repeatable? No. Yet, there it is, in plain view, for the world to see.

At MarcRudov.com and in my other articles, I stress that a company's homepage is its primary branding platform and must be treated as such. If the brand is weak there, it's weak everywhere.

According to Alexa, 45.4% of traffic to Microsoft.com lands on its homepage and drops off precipitously from there. Microsoft is wasting branding dollars, meaning that it needlessly increases its cost of sales.

In "Branding a Behemoth," I discuss the challenges huge companies face to maintain their brands as they grow and diversify. In "Never Rest on Your Brand's Laurels," I caution against presuming that customers know what your company does. In today's issue of the San Jose Mercury News, columnist Chris O'Brien explains that Google has expanded so rapidly that it now suffers from the same disease: murky brand.

Rx from The WhiteNoise Doctor™

Message to CEOs: Treat your homepage like a highway billboard. If you wouldn't display your message at roadside, knowing that passersby won't grasp it, don't put it on your homepage, either.

Microsoft has one stock symbol (NASDAQ: MSFT) to represent its value to investors. It also must have one brand to represent is value to customers. What is it?

About the Author

Marc Rudov, The WhiteNoise Doctor™, is a branding-strategy advisor, the creator of GutShare™, and an internationally known media personality.
www.MarcRudov.com | www.GutShare.com

Copyright © 2009 by Marc H. Rudov. All Rights Reserved.

Branding a Behemoth

By Marc H. Rudov

Conglomerate: Branding Nightmare

While earning an MBA at Boston University's Graduate School of Management, I wrote a thesis for my advanced-finance course on the value of conglomerates -- huge firms, like ITT, composed of unlike businesses. My quantitative analysis proved that such mashups did not benefit shareholders, who could achieve better returns by creating their own diversified portfolios.

In addition to being a subpar investment vehicle, a conglomerate is a branding nightmare. What is it? What is its core value proposition -- to whom?

Hard to Put a Single Label On It

Look at the Fortune 500 of 2008. Huge companies. Behemoths all, from Walmart at $379B in annual revenues to Scana at $4.6B. Most of them grew to their current sizes by subsuming other companies. Growth, whether organic or via acquisition, serves one of two competitive goals: deliver more value to existing customers or serve new ones.

Regardless of expansion goal or method, the strategy must be sound and the new brand easy to articulate. Yes, the new, updated brand. Once the composition of a company changes, its identity changes. That means new brand, too. Why? Brand is identity. Instead, what I usually hear from execs is this: "We're in so many lines of business now, it's hard to put a single label on it."

Really? That's your job. When I hear that excuse, I deduce that this behemoth has become a conglomerate. Talk about lacking uniqueness and being stuck in the white noise!

As I've repeated ad nauseam, if one cannot articulate his brand in customer language (never vendor language) -- uniquely, concisely, compellingly, memorably -- there is no brand.

Rx from The WhiteNoise Doctor™

Branding a behemoth, like a startup, is a critical responsibility of every CEO. There's no getting around it. Size and complexity are not excuses for a weak brand.

If your behemoth struggles to convey a unique core brand, there are three possible reasons:

1. It became a behemoth for growth's sake, via wild acquisition binges, not to enhance the brand
2. The wrong people are assigned to branding the behemoth
   
3. As an inexplicable conglomerate, your behemoth is simply unbrandable.

Customers -- consumer, industrial, military, or commercial -- buy from vendors whose brands they understand. Do they understand your brand? Test it. Ask your biggest customer to explain it to you.

BEHEMOTH POSTSCRIPT

On July 22, 2009, Amazon.com announced the $850M acquisition of Zappos, an online shoe retailer whose brand I analyzed previously. When questioned about it, Amazon CFO Tom Szkutak said: "This deal was not about synergies. This is about growing in categories that we think are interesting.”

Interesting? Mr. Szkutak: Invest your money -- not the stockholders' -- in categories you think are "interesting." This is the recipe for building a behemoth!

About the Author

Marc Rudov, The WhiteNoise Doctor™, is a branding-strategy advisor, the creator of GutShare™, and an internationally known media personality.
www.MarcRudov.com | www.GutShare.com

Copyright © 2009 by Marc H. Rudov. All Rights Reserved.

Never Rest on Your Brand's Laurels

By Marc H. Rudov

One Million Acts of Green

Imagine Tiger Woods announcing that, because he won the US Open in 2008 and is ranked #1, he would win again in 2009. Tiger's too smart for that (by the way, he didn't win in 2009). He knows that presumption -- resting on his laurels -- would kill his brand and ultimately backfire.

Now, envision a sales VP telling his CEO that, because their company is ranked #1 and a big customer purchased their products last year, that customer will buy again this year. The CEO would fire him. Resting on one's laurels in sales also backfires!

When a rising, aggressive company begins to achieve critical mass and buzz, customers and prospects flock to its new brand. There's an electricity in the air, as business flows over the transom. Often, though, presumption of success sets in like rigor mortis.

Recently, I told a marketing exec at Cisco Systems that I no longer understand the Cisco brand. In fact, there is no Cisco brand. The company has become a giant purveyor of many networking products for a wide span of customers. With all that diversity and complexity, it needs to have a simple, compelling, unique brand that ties it all together. It doesn't.

Instead, Cisco's homepage contains messaging about "the human-network effect" and "one million acts of green." Sorry, I don't get that and certainly can't fathom it in 15 seconds. Said this marketing exec: "Our Website has nothing to do with our go-to-market strategy. Besides, everyone in the industry already knows what we do."

1. The Website is fundamental to a company's go-to-market strategy. To say otherwise indicates a paucity of marketing expertise, savvy, and priority in the company
   
2. Presuming that people know what your company does epitomizes resting on your brand's laurels. Cisco is a fine company, but CEO John Chambers must end this attitude of presumption: it weakens the brand and needlessly raises Cisco's cost of sales. Ultimately, it will backfire.

A Gasping Patient

Have you ever noticed that, in any economic downturn, CEOs cut marketing dollars first? It's true. This is akin to a doctor cutting oxygen to a gasping patient. Ludicrous.

In general, CEOs have difficulty quantifying the value of a brand -- they think it's nebulous gobbledygook. Is this true in your case? If so, cut the gobbledygook, and its authors. Invest more dollars to create a strong, unique brand that will attract customers, like moths to a lightbulb, and lower the cost of sales.

Rx from The WhiteNoise Doctor™

A company must keep its brand strong to remain unique through the constantly evolving industry, marketplace, and market forces. What your company achieved last week, last year, or last decade is nice, but it's history. Today is what matters.

Next time you catch yourself thinking, everyone in the industry already knows what we do, stop. You are resting on your brand's laurels. Now, visit your largest customer to deliver that message, with that attitude. I dare you.

If you wouldn't communicate with presumption to one customer, don't let your Website do it to thousands or millions of them.

Never rest on your brand's laurels -- or, eventually, you'll be sleeping on them.

About the Author

Marc Rudov, The WhiteNoise Doctor™, is a branding-strategy advisor, the creator of GutShare™, and an internationally known media personality.
www.MarcRudov.com | www.GutShare.com

Copyright © 2009 by Marc H. Rudov. All Rights Reserved.