How Cool Are You?

Ever wondered what makes people cool - or how cool you are? Some years ago, while at The University of Western Sydney we set out to identify what made people cool. We found there were 5 factors:

• Self Belief and Confidence: Being true to yourself no matter what the environment. having a strong internal locus of control
• Defying Convention: Following your own, different path. Born out of passion
• Understated Achievement: Being successful, but modest about your achievements
• Caring for Others: Being sensitive, left leaning and broad-minded
• Connectivity: Being connected to others

At Naked we believe that cool people can help shape the fortunes of many brands and businesses. Therefore understanding who cool people are, and what drives them can be extremely important. We therefore constructed a questionnaire that helped us find and understand cool people.

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We have now modified this questionnaire and turned it into a Facebook application. Now you can find out how cool you are, as well as understand the areas you need to work on to become cooler. Feedback as always is appreciated (and for you (anti) social media types please feedback as if we were in the room together having a real conversation).

Find out how cool you are here.

PS This research was motivated by me being a) The State Under 12 Chess Champion, and b) the school hockey team's goal keeper. Neither of which were deemed particularly cool by my classmates.

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People who would do well on this test are: Lara Croft, Kevin Rudd, Pink, Johnny Depp,

People who would do badly are: Malcolm Turnbul, John Farnham, Chk Chk Boom girl, Delta Goodrem

Why Clare Werbeloff Did It, And Why Channel 9's The Real Bogan

In a few hours time we are going to hear from 'Clare the Bogan' in her own words why she did what she did. For what it's worth I thought it would be interesting to hypothesise why.

Here's what did not happen:
a) It wasn't a stunt for a beer brand. The marketing department at Lion Nathan (who makes Toohey's Extra Dry) would never align one of their brands with crime - although they would obviously be loving the free media.
b) She did not fly over from Paddington in 6 minutes to get on the scene to say something to get noticed.

Here's what may have happened
a) Clare is a young girl growing up in a culture where we can not only have our 15 minutes of fame it appears it's our given right. Clare wants to be a famous model, actor, singer.... anything!
b) Clare is out on the town and appears to be experiencing feelings of euphoria and invincibility
c) Clare and her friends have heard about a shooting down the street. They start talking about it enthusiastically with one another
d) Clare tells a very funny (albeit crass and racist) version of the shooting to her friends.
e) Clare and her friends see the TV crew approach, and Clare's friends encourage her to tell her funny version of events to the camera.
f) Under pressure from friends, coupled with feelings of euphoria and invisibility, whilst living in a culture where everyone has a god given right to be famous and have their opinions heard Clare goes on camera and tells her story.

If the above is in the ball park of being true then Clare shows signs of vanity, attention seeking behaviour, potentially an over inflated sense of self-importance, elements of racism, poor decision making (no doubt impaired through recent substance use), and arguably a lack of schooling. None of which is particularly interesting.

However, the fact that Channel 9 decided to show the ramblings of this women, and broadcast it as 'news' is! It's not Clare's behaviour that should be put under the microscope - she's having a bit of fun (after all she wants to be famous) however, what is Channel 9's excuse? I have no idea why they would show this. Nor do I understand why they would not check to see if her comments had any legitimate basis. Perhaps it was because she is 'hot', or perhaps because the minority culture she chooses to abuse are not that extreme?

Channel 9's complete lack of judgement for reporting the racist, sensationalist ramblings of a party girl in full flight as newsworthy is worrying. We need the media, we need a working Fourth Estate - as a check and balance on society. However, it appears the press is now just part of the rabble of society.

It is clear that not only is Clare a Bogan, but Channel 9 is fast becoming a bogan's breeding ground.

The Answer is Still Distribution

OK - its been a while since I did marketing 101. So I am going to guess that the 4 P's (even though there are now 7) were Promotion, Price, Product, and Place.  I'm also going to guess that Place meant distribution. 

Take three of the worlds biggest and most powerful brands:

• Coca Cola
  
• Google
  
• McDonalds

How have all three got there? The answer is not promotion (or advertising) but place (or distribution).  They created a remarkable product then found a business model to disseminate it (place) effectively.

• Coke separated manufacture with distribution by creating two separate companies
  
• McDonald's perfected franchising - and with a store on every street corner in the world, it now apparently makes more money through real estate than it does through sales of products
  
• Google deconstructed it's website and went to where people were online rather than making people go to them.
  

Can you deliver whatever it is you sell more conveniently? Whether that be on or offline, or both? Get product and place right before you consider promotion. Agree?

Volunteering Makes You More Attractive

Do you want to be happier, more successful, and more attractive to the opposite sex. I have a very simple solution - one that you can implement immediately, and it doesn't cost you a cent.

The scientific findings of Positive Psychology show that volunteering makes you sexier, happier, more popular, and basically more content with life. SEEK Volunteer (a client of Naked's) makes it easy. Check out how here.

Please spread the word, and volunteer some of your time - it's a much more effective route to life satisfaction than wasting your money on personal development courses such as Landmark or Anthony Robbins.

Be happier for free.

Is Your Agency Killing Your Brand With Love?

Many agencies are so concerned with "creating an emotional connection" that they are killing the brands they work on. This is especially true of many big, established brands, some of which have lost their way. Take for example, the following brands:

• Myer
• Ford
• Westpac
• Toohey's New

What do these brands stand for? What is the benefit they offer? How is this benefit different from their competitors? These brands may all be, to a greater or lesser degree the victims of advertising that has, for to long focused on 'emotional engagement' at the expense of clearly articulating what the brand is for and the benefit it offers - they may be 'donut brands'. That is, they are nice to taste but ultimately, lacking substance - with a giant hole in the middle of them. This hole is because there is no clearly articulated reason why these brands deliver on the emotional engagement promised in the advertising.

Poor Myer has been trying to unconvincingly tell people for years that it is 'My Store'. However, it's never articulated why it is indeed 'My Store'. Consequently few people believe the promise and the business suffers.

The ad industries obsession with 'emotional branding' and brand love is killing brands. The research industry is also doing their bit, putting the knife in, by having so many research measures that focus on 'love' and 'affinity' at the expense of 'why'.

William Bernbach, said, “You can say the right thing about a product, and nobody will listen. You’ve got to say it in such a way that people will feel it in their gut. Because if they don’t feel it, nothing will happen.” Wise words. Unfortunately, in the quest to make people 'feel', I think we've forgotten to give people a reason to purchase.

People need to not only feel connected to the brands they buy, they also need a reason to purchase. If they can't clearly articulate this reason (to themselves) then they are less likely to buy your brand.

What do you think? Do you see your agency killing brands through love?

Brand vs. Communications vs. Social Media Strategy

Have a look at the Adage Power 150 Blogs (well just look at the first 50 really) and what bloggers blog about in 'marketing'. Very few blogs actually look at marketing, most instead focus on communications, with the majority focusing on social media and digital communications. I'm not sure why there is such an executional focus by bloggers. I would expect more to focus on brand and business issues - not just what cool creative they have done.

Of the top 50 I roughly counted:

• 5 had a marketing focus
• 20 had a communications focus
• 25 had a social media / digital focus

Is developing sound brand strategy is a dying art? Who out there in blogger land feels they have the credentials to blog on brand strategy? Why do the few of them who do blog get so easily seduced into putting up and commenting on ads or the latest cool thing done in social media?

Good strategy needs to be again glorified. To see what I mean check out Rory Sutherland's excellent post here. He says in part "It's not that planning was wrong (it was a noble ideal for sure) it just didn't work. It simply produced a wine that required laying down for people who were planning to hold a party that night."

What Other Untapped Brand Opportunities Are Out There?

Brand's exist because a) brands make consumers life easier and make them feel good - consequently they are willing to pay over the odds for the privilege, and b) companies therefore make more money as people are prepared to pay more or use the same thing more often.

A useful strategy is to look for categories with an emotional story where brands don't exist and brand them - it can change a companies financial fortunes.

Macquarie Infrastructure Group, for example is the part of Mac Bank responsible for Toll Roads (one of the largest Toll road owners in the world). There shares have dropped from around $40.00 a share to around $3.00 a share in 4 years. Now lets examine how they have branded their greatest asset - their Toll Roads:

• They call them Toll Roads
• They have names like The M1, The Eastern Distributor, Citylink, or the M3
• You have to buy products called eTag, or something to use them
• When you drive through a pay station the etag thing beeps loudly
• All of their communications are boring and complicated (check out the website)
• They are drab, boring and feel slightly exploitative (i.e. 'why should people have to pay to use Toll roads isn't that what taxes are for')

How do people feel as a result of using these twice a day, every day year in and year out? Possibly bored, depressed, and pissed off.

Now lets imagine we can't change the product, but we can change the packaging and re-brand Toll Roads.

• Instead of calling them Toll Roads we call them Premium Roads
• The roads have uplifting names such as Happy Drive, Inspiration Lane, YourWay Highway
• You don't purchase an eTag, instead you may purchase a Liberation Pass to give you access to the system
• When you pass a pay zone instead of beeping a little dat-da-dar da-dar victory chime rings out
• As a premium roads user you receive regular information, discounts and so on...

The nature of the relationship people have with you will change instantly. Just make it fun, or interesting, or status orientated and people will feel much better about using them. And why do you want to do this Mr Macquarie? Well from a company perspective Nicolas Moore would not have to take a $26 million paycut, instead you could harness the goodwill created and focus on top line wealth creating growth. From a consumer perspective you may make life a little more interesting or fun.

Any category that has high emotional engagement, but no established brands can be completely overhauled. For example, Naked's consumer research found people loved their pools (they act as a magnet for street socialisation) but, no pool salt had ever bothered to brand itself. So we created a premium pool salt. It made people feel good about their pool salt, and massively improved the financial performance of the company.

Just go for a walk in any supermarket isle and you'll find many categories still ripe for reinvention. Further, Macquarie should start to look at how it can begin to brand the many wonderful assets it still owns.

I would be interested to know what other categories exist (on or offline) that have as yet not branded themselves? Any thoughts?