Ho-hum good news, one might think. An absolute game-changer, I say! If you’re an auto manufacturer, you have to know that people trust the car they buy will work. Indeed, we have the technology to make sure that expectation is realistic. Not that many years ago, demanding car shoppers studiously avoided cars assembled on Mondays. With humans involved far more heavily in the construction, who knew if someone on the line was mending a weekend binge?

That means the brand package for cars has changed dramatically to an emphasis on features. Our family just recently bought a new van. Hotly contested issues included:

• Were seat warmers available both back and front?
• Was the back-seat video screen big enough for the kids to watch TV?
• Did the GPS have a pleasant enough voice?

Who would have dreamed of these as priority considerations a decade ago?

How do you know when your brand package reaches a new level of evolutionary maturity? Close and continuous study of the market is indispensable:

• The time span between development of new technologies and their widespread availability is becoming shockingly small.
• The lateral transfer of technologies from even remote industries is becoming commonplace.
• The quality claims upon which your brand reputation may have been staked for decades may now sound trite or even quaint.

IT PAYS TO STAY ALERT AND A LITTLE NERVOUS. DON’T EVER ASSUME A BRAND’S HALLMARK STRENGTHS ARE WRITTEN IN PERMANENT INK. ENTREPRENEUR VICTOR KIAM SUMMED UP THE DYNAMICS OF COMPETITION THIS WAY: “IN BUSINESS, THE COMPETITION WILL BITE YOU IF YOU KEEP RUNNING. IF YOU STAND STILL, THEY WILL SWALLOW YOU.”

© 2012

These questions may help audit your brand knack at being a plausible “game” platform:

• Do you routinely (but not predictably!) offer little rewards to your customers? It could be bonusing them with more ounces of content. Perhaps it’s a tip sheet on how to wear an accessory with a sporty new flair. Maybe it’s a heretical suggestion on how to use less of your product and save money.
• When you are cute and clever, do you invest time and energy on touches that pay off for the customer? Some browsers may find Google’s increasingly frequent antics with their logo to be creative. Many see these doodles as a distracting nuisance. What if Google offered a fresh link from time-to-time that made your search time on Google more productive . . . or suggested when Bing or Yahoo! might even be a better search tool? Remember when Macy’s Kris Kringle sends shoppers to Gimbels in Miracle on 34^th Street? You can’t project more sovereign authority and confidence than that.
• Do you shake up your assortment with guest stars? Perhaps a merchant offers a special coffee blend for just a couple of weeks. Starbucks does. In China, McDonald’s presents a limited-time Chinese New Year meal with curly fries.
• People can see a pitch coming 10 miles away. . . and our pitch detection antennae get better every day. Are you still pitching yourself? Worse yet, do you try to conceal premeditation? Teach consumers to use your brand intelligently or reveal unknown and substantial facts about your sustainability and provenance.
• Do you really believe that offering products assembled by cookie spyware endears you to consumers? How welcoming can individuals be of relentless surveillance of their shopping?

TAKE LITTLE RISKS AND DELIGHT CONSUMERS WITH TINY PLEASURES. LUXURY IS ANYTHING DESIRABLE IN LIMITED SUPPLY … SOMETHING YOU DON’T HAVE EVERY DAY. THAT’S THE #1 FILTER. KNOW YOUR CUSTOMERS WELL ENOUGH TO LIGHT THAT LITTLE FIRE OF ENTHUSIASM, AND FIND A PROFESSIONAL’S SATISFACTION IN DOING WHAT YOU DON’T HAVE TO.

© 2012

These resurrected, antique strains of Silene stenophylla have messages for modern brand managers. The deep-frozen seeds were gotten to grow by crafting a new placenta – embedding the seed in “placental” tissue from seed-fruit itself. Flip forward to reviving brands. One plausible starting point is to bring the original brand literally back to life for the managers charged with the revival task.

Re-create the experiences associated with a brand when it was fresh and thriving (a kind of brand “placenta”) to see how it once flourished and fit in the brand jungle. That original experience might include the sort of stuff stashed away in most company archives:

• Newspaper and popular song references,
• Old print and black-and-white TV ads,
• Original strategic plans,
• And decades-old customer praise and complaint letters.

DON’T DISMISS ARCHIVAL TREASURES AS NOSTALGIA ABOUT A BRAND THAT ONCE WAS. NAIL A TOEHOLD: RE-CREATE THE EXPERIENCE THAT COULD HELP REVEAL HOW A BRAND ACTUALLY GRABBED PEOPLE IN ITS ORIGINAL HEYDAY!
© 2012

As I see it, here are imperatives that guide a consummate brand curator:

• Know the DNA of the brand inside out and defend its essence.
• Keep the brand authentic.  Steadfastly resist the temptation to compromise brand value in pursuit of short-term opportunity.
• Know how the brand connects with its target market and the values that differentiate it as valuable. (And, welcome customers who customize the brand constructively.)
• Sense how the brand fulfills any customer’s constant desire for “good life moments” – moments to which we all feel entitled.
• Constantly “dust” the merchandise to let the brand sparkle fresh, and keep re-focusing the spotlight to maintain the aura.
• Ally yourself with the agendas of brand enthusiasts and evangelists in social networks. These are the brand “patrons” who celebrate central brand values. Their brand problems and challenges demand prompt resolution.
• When the brand is licensed, regard licensing as an act of trust like a “loaned” exhibit to a great museum. Only entrust your brand to best-in-class licensing resources.
• Immerse yourself in the brand experience of competitors to learn how they might excel where you merely dabble.

Thomas Hoving was a distinguished curator of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. In Making the Mummies Dance, Hoving wrote revealingly about two curator traits: (1) His curators were inexhaustibly passionate in what they did. “Most couldn’t go to sleep without looking at yet one more photo of a work of art.” (2) They were broader gauged than expected. “[M]ost art curators possessed a surprising knowledge about other fields…”

PASSION BREEDS FOCUSED ENERGY, AND INTELLIGENT CURIOSITY UNDERPINS BREADTH: A GRASP OF BIG-PICTURE CONTEXT. AWESOME CURATORS HAVE BOTH.
© 2012

Body language is a listening skill. Samuel Goldwyn – the centerpiece initial in MGM – was an unrivaled connoisseur of talent, writers in particular. He lassoed aces like Ben Hecht and Lillian Hellman. He also once launched a meeting with an admonition: “Gentlemen, listen to me slowly.” Smart advice. We all race to get to the point. Sometimes it pays to slow down . . . reading body language as much as words.

People like stores where staff enjoys being a part of the story. Great staff radiates the brand experience.

Stores lecture their associates endlessly about the right words to greet customers. So often retailers ignore what body language says. Carriage, gesture, pace and poise speak volumes.

In a words-are-cheap world, deals are sealed with sincere smiles and straightforward signals.

How do you banter and dance when no one’s looking?

• The right greeting is more how you say it than what you say.
• A handshake’s grip and flair can be a tribal trademark.
• In a second, sluggish eye contact telegraphs either “Get lost!” OR “I’m all yours. How can I help?”

Check out Dr. Carol Kinsey Goman’s tutorial on negotiation body language that appeared in Forbes last year: http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolkinseygoman/2011/03/31/4-tips-for-reading-body-language-in-a-negotiation/ The bigger the ticket, the more the sale becomes a negotiation: a negotiation over terms . . . over price . . . or simply salesperson likability.

© 2012

Traditional logic: Any badly managed company will almost certainly manage its brands poorly.

Maverick logic: Use the brand itself as a tool to detect flaws in the company’s management process.

Put maverick logic to work:

• Social media buzz discloses the state of the brand in the consumers’ world. Do you monitor buzz about the brand inside the company with the same intensity as you do in the marketplace?
• Is your firm dedicated to the primary goal of directly and passionately supporting a superior customer experience? Starbucks and Apple are.
• What are the weakest points of a typical customer experience with your brand? Are these the weakest links in your organization? Are these units also designed or measured against outdated standards?
• Is everyone on your team always centered on what the brand experience means today, how it may be changing . . . and what that experience says about where your team should spend its time?
• What are the central values that delight customers about your brand? How much energy and how many dollars do you waste trying to deliver values that customers find insignificant or irrelevant?

As CEO of Carter’s children’s apparel, Fred Rowan had incredible brand focus. When we worked with him in brand development several years ago, he would regularly remind us and his colleagues to “Trust in few things.” Carter’s has prospered as a brand through its command in the category of layette sets for newborns.

NEVER TAKE YOUR EYE OFF THE CORE OF YOUR CUSTOMER’S BRAND EXPERIENCE.

© 2012

Docking in outer space has become a silent, precise and misleadingly effortless ballet. The early days of extraterrestrial docking were hardly that. First off, aligning craft at huge distances is no small matter. Another challenge to beset early dockers was to deplete their “maneuvering fuel” before they could achieve the targeted contact.

Today the world of brand licensing has become a kind of elaborate docking exercise. Modern licensing resembles docking in virtual reality. Not only is it tricky, the scale of enterprise has become breathtakingly huge. A 2008 study by the Licensing Industry Merchandisers’ Association said licensing was a $150 billion business worldwide with $95 billion of it centered in the United States. Among important trends, the report noted licensing was “used as a means to accomplish different goals” and that “deals are getting bigger.”

I would add that licensing has become an almost automatic option when one thinks of brand development or acquisition. And here’s the peril: Because it’s seen nearly as a given, licensing success is regarded as a sure thing . . . a mechanical afterthought. Hardly done with push-button ease, state-of-the-art licensing is more reminiscent of the early days of space docking. In fact, we live in a world of intangibles. Without the right experience or sound counsel, getting it right can require considerable energy and effort.

Important processes need attention, including these:

• Licensing increasingly involves multiple partners in very different industries. Is brand consistency between these different realms actively managed?
• Are licensed products subjected to calendarized and / or seasonal reviews?
• Is there ongoing awareness of broad trends in technology and competition which may extend beyond the scope of even the best licensees?
• Is brand value regarded from both legacy and futuristic standpoints? And are all parties aware of where, when and how investments are being made to uphold brand value?

When brand licensing goes astray, it’s usually the result of process breakdowns in docking. But, as Warren Buffett is fond of saying: “In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.”

Neither of these corporate illustrations is germane to the licensing experience on my mind today. However, they drive home how sensitive a brand can be to nuanced leadership. We see this vulnerability often in licensing arrangements after a brand has changed ownership, and the founder-entrepreneur is no longer a part of the landscape.

The absence or departure of a founder-entrepreneur can have mammoth impact on the value and future of a brand. Truly gifted brand managers have multi-dimensional models for the opportunity locked inside of brands. This aptitude or gift may seem irreplaceable. In truth, filling the brand management gap is feasible . . . but the transition is often far from easy.

The most simplistic, though often fatal error made is to assume brand value is simply an inheritable asset. Uncompromising differences separate brand ownership from skillful brand management. When a brand asset passes from a founder-entrepreneur’s hands, it often becomes a colorless series of income streams. It’s easy and dangerous for financial managers to compartmentalize a brand in a way an entrepreneur-founder rarely would.

There are a variety of approaches for subjecting a brand to rigorous brand management – either within an organization or outsourced. Creating cookie-cutter descriptions for either sort of manager is somewhat futile because of the personalized touches required. A more useful checklist identifies whether key brand management needs are being addressed:

• Is the brand equipped with a genuine operating model, not just a series of revenue and profit projections?
• If production for existing or extended categories is shifted outside the organization, are relationships struck with best-in-class resources?
• Are strong incentive structures in place to uphold brand quality and to keep its identity current? (More and more collaborative agreements provide for shared stake-holding arrangements to achieve exactly that end.)
• Is the brand anchored to welcome consumer input in evolving the brand identity and positioned for success in social media?

It’s remarkable but true that outsourcing production of the brand can actually improve creativity and the ability to spot and seize opportunities.

Manufacturing companies are often imperiled by the day-to-day rush of production. The fundamental and inescapable truth is this: If you own a brand and the founding spirit is no longer a force in energizing the brand, you will then need a way to fuel and renew the brand. Permit the asset to grow cold and irrelevant . . . and the investment you may have paid handsomely for is bound to whither from neglect.

© 2012

Polo Ralph Lauren is not just a classic among brands. It represents the quintessence of brand management. Its relations with tennis at Wimbledon and the USTA and its outfitting of U.S. Olympic teams broke ground. They formed some of the most admired apparel / athletic partnerships around. As the brand extended itself into fragrances, Ralph Lauren skillfully selected L’Oreal. For eyewear, Luxottica was the pick. Both those partners are today the world’s largest in their respective specialties.

There are many ways to manage a brand well. A surefire to run it badly is to consider the brand to be a self-managing revenue machine. Ralph Lauren is just the opposite. A 2010 Financial Times article commented: “Ralph knows everything, and signs off on everything, from stationery to hedging strategies. This can be frustrating if you like decisions made very fast, but it also ensures consistency.”

From the very outset, Lauren managed the business with the invaluable asset of objective eyes. In the FT article, the founder commented this is “not a family company. It’s a public company built on an individual vision. There are 41 people in the company who have been here 21 years or longer, and only one of those . . .  is actually a member of my family. I’ve had an outside president almost since I started.”

My readers know my core survival checklist. It’s tried and true . . .and it  remains unchanged. Brand management regularly monitors performance against four measures:

• Is the brand routinely assessed versus the state of the economy? Economic swings can redefine entire categories. And compel yourself to look at broader economic trends crossing industry lines.
• How is the brand faring against its specific industry? Today, that so very often translates to ability to stay apace of changes in underlying technology.
• What exactly is the firm’s management capable of achieving and how well prepared is the team to spot and maximize future opportunity?
• Lastly, is the basic brand DNA kept vital and manifested in fresh ways?

This list harkens back to the incomparable importance of consistency in brand management. A passage from Peter Drucker on value triggered a kindred thought in me: Be especially sure your team has a common way of valuing what you learn . . . because how you intuit value drives how you and your colleagues behave.

We live in an overwhelmingly intricate world. Every direct step we take gets deflected or postponed. We yearn to take slam-dunk actions, but direct hits are rare. Each score requires endless backboarding and rebounding. By contrast, gaming delivers an immediate, reliable and very satisfying result.

In many cases gaming is a distraction. In a growing way, it’s an opportunity to participate socially. We don’t just want to be affected. We want to have an effect: Push a button and make a mark that others can acknowledge. Enjoy a little bit of a win in a public, albeit virtual space..

There’s another slant: The virtual world can be practice for the real world as much as it is an escape from it. Brands need to go to school on this stunning fact. They need to understand how to live meaningfully in the virtual world . . . or somewhere in between virtual and nuts-and-bolts real.

Building a Starbucks franchise in a FarmVille virtual city for firms like Zynga and Facebook is just an inkling. As people spend their coveted “breather” time in virtual space, brands will find a way to join them. Brands will become part of the natural fabric of virtual space, especially in gaming. Brands that do so successfully, I predict, will also recognize and respect the new marketing consciousness. They’ll build no “push”, supportive alliances.

Perhaps each of us will possess a branding bank . . . an identity bank . . . an avatar bank in the future. Perhaps the new synergy will permit both brands and individuals to be heroes in a radically new and authentic way.

Perhaps the most valuable intellectual property of the future will be hundreds of millions of personal brands anchored in cyberspace – each of them with traces of commercial brand presence in their composite identities. Could such hashtags create our personalized nicknames in a virtual future?

How can a brand “game” with consumers in respectful, meaningful and invigorating ways? Play unleashes great peace, satisfaction and creativity. That intriguing mindset might be the “marketing with” engine of the future.

IKEA’s founder Ingvar Kamprad had a much different vision. Now the biggest furniture merchant in the world, IKEA trailblazed the idea of stylish self-assembled furniture. Kamprad’s vision: “Our idea is to serve everybody, including people with little money.” That’s the kind of commonsensical thinking you’d expect from a guy who started out selling matches in the neighborhood off his bicycle.

Commonsensical . . . but explosively catalytic.

Kamprad’s furniture business started out as mail-order. The first store came ten years after the concept was launched.

What was true for IKEA is far truer for today’s seed strategies: Start out with a strong and fertile concept, and it’s nearly impossible to predict the vehicles. Need is the driving force. Look at Apple: The company has been around for less than forty years. By far the majority of them have been as a computer business. But in the last decade, Apple has achieved dominance in the recorded music industry and redefined telephoning.

Many things that spring from the core can’t be planned out anymore. Establish the right foundation in an authentic and natural way, and the market will help shape growth and even morph formats. The market’s defining power can have a geometrically significant effect.

Once you nail the basic product, the vital brand questions become:

• Is it caring?
• Does it contribute to people’s life in a meaningful way?
• Is the value appropriate for the need?

With the right nucleus, you’ll establish a conversation. If you’re lucky, it’s an exploratory one. Invite communication to engage your brand ambassadors. Awareness is the most exciting space to own, and it belongs to the catalytic.

When something silly is taken for true, challenge those who believe as well those who mislead. A funny twist has taken place, however. For centuries, misguided or devious authorities may have misled the public. With alarming frequency, I see supposed authorities becoming the gullible ones. They continue to believe their analyses and models, failing to recognize that street cred comes first. The authorities are now misleading themselves.

Faulty brand management is a matchless example of reckless gullibility. In the “push” marketing era, brand managers would concoct a brand identity. Hurl it out the window and see if the concept would fly. Armed with a hefty promotional budget, it might indeed.

Today’s consumers are far too skeptical. They reject mere imagery in lieu of product essence. They demand manufacturers deliver sound, credible brands. And they expect retailers to curate their assortments to offer the best value and experiences available. But, credibility? That now has to come from the street. It’s a completely upside-down model.

Experience, engagement, conversation – it’s the buzz that transforms itself into viral communication. That’s how you build awareness and acceptance today. The push formula is no longer a viable proposition. And, there are no predetermined pathways . . . though there is a trustworthy path.

A company needs to develop a relationship with a close-knit community of evangelists. Depending on a brand’s size and/or scope, that core might require ten . . . or it might need ten times that number. Entrust the nucleus of the brand’s identity to that core. Give them the brand at its authentic best, and let them celebrate what you have to offer. Don’t fidget with trying to design all the supporting qualities and attributes. Instead of romancing your fans, listen intensely to their suggestions. Your core supporters will teach you how to appreciate the brand in ways you could never premeditate. Today’s brand management hinges on this cornerstone: intelligent trust.

Revlon was the program’s sponsor. “The Sales of Revlon . . . skyrocketed. Some Revlon products sold out overnight, and the show’s master of ceremonies had to beg the public to be more patient until more Revlon Living Lipstick was available.”

In 1955, U.S. population was just under 166 million. Viewership for this show accounted for 28.6%. Does that seem modest compared with more than half of today’s 300 million plus who tuned into Super Bowl XLV?

Not on your life! Consider that a single brand – Revlon – commanded the attention of nearly a third of the citizenry on that evening in 1955. Factor that against the parade of sponsors in today’s Super Bowl. And not just the deluge of messages is the issue. The chief interest viewers have in these ads has become comparing them for their entertainment value.

Yet, how many contemporary brand managers remain caught in a time warp of this distant past? Do some soul-searching:

• Are you presuming that you can reach and overwhelm the marketplace with a seductive message?
• Is more time being spent buying and manipulating “the numbers” for the market than addressing the core essence of the brand?
• Do you treat your brand as a slingshot that can be neatly targeted at a market that has become overwhelmingly fragmented and complex?
• Do you believe that the most influential marketers your brand has available to you are within your organization . . . as opposed to among your team of consumer enthusiasts in the marketplace?
• Lastly, do you still succumb to brand arrogance – believing you can instruct and mandate consumer loyalty as opposed to winning it?

Let’s unpack that idea. In the brand origination and remediation trade, we talk a lot about discovering brand DNA. Find that DNA. Investigate it, inhale it, and build upon it.

The DNA fundamental of brand management is here to stay for a long time. However, a corresponding and derivative change is taking place as well. Individual consumers are developing their own individual brand identities. It’s a composite of their own individuality as it engages with the brand world around them.

In some cases, individualization means explicitly detailing the fit and/or finishing of a garment or even adjusting product formulations. New technologies make customization both feasible to realize and profitable to offer. So, in more and more cases, brands are themselves becoming platforms that can be “templatized” to match individual wants. A built-to-order, customization experience – once available only to the awesomely well-heeled – is slowly seeping into mainstream life.

What’s a brand manager to do in the face of such bewildering turmoil? First off, understand just who you need to be. The best answer to this question is an oblique one. Let me explain.

One way to size-up the world is to divide people into four categories. These different groups all approach the lived experience that comes our way in four different modes:

• The first group – perhaps 90% of the world – just goes with the flow. In these times, doing just that and only that with a firm footing is no mean achievement.

• The second group – populated largely by scientists, systems mavens, accountants and other objective thinkers – stand above the flow and retain a carefully defended objectivity. That too has enormous value in a world that is more and more reliant on technology.

• The third group is capable of going with the flow and then snapping out of it at crucial moments to take stock, reflect and articulate. They are even capable of helping to shape the flow itself to some extent. In this category, I would put business, governmental and thought leaders.

• The fourth category contains the whitewater rafters in the flow of lived experience. These people both continuously experience the flow of things in a direct and immediate way, yet they retain a powerful detachment that allows them to adjust and refine what they are doing. Among others, this fourth category includes artists, superior craftsmen, gifted athletes, and – you guessed it – brand managers.

Why does a brand manager need to be this fourth breed of personality? Because of the skill mix required to manage the modern brand. On the one hand, there are the curatorial obligations to defend and protect the brand’s core identity. On the other are the compelling needs to tailor and edit the brand as consumers increasingly demand customization.

If this sounds like quite enough career peril . . . wait. There’s more!

That 90% who go with the flow are becoming ever smarter and more demanding of what they expect out of life. In their own ways, each wants to taste “good moment” experiences, no matter what their income level. Each wants to exert control in some way or other. (Internet gaming may be the most powerful manifestation of this drive to control outcomes and win. When hundreds of millions flock to download a game like Angry Birds, that’s a clue you can’t ignore.)

Defend intrinsic brand DNA and help empower consumers in an emerging world where consumers are becoming their own brand. In whitewater rafting, that tall order is up there in what’s termed a Grade V experience. That’s the expert level in which the rafter must pirouette and nose-dunk to re-right the craft just to stay afloat. Incomparable competence and dexterity are demanded. For brand management, it’s no less so.

© 2011

Could you live without your car navigation system? I certainly couldn’t. It continually and reliably tells me where I’m headed. When I drive my car, my first focus is immediate safety. But, the back of my mind is now dedicated to planning my next meeting or presentation. It used to be devoted to plotting out and course-correcting my itinerary.

The Parker Brothers Monopoly game was born in 1935. It launched with the two classic utilities – water and electricity. In fact, these resources mirrored the average American life for decades. You might add natural gas and telephone – although the hardwired, fixed-line phone system started unraveling as a utility years ago.

The fact now is that our lives are governed by a new class of utilities rooted in embedded and wireless technologies. Smartphones and touchpads let us pocket our command centers for home and office . . . in effect, for life as we know it and run it.

The new utilities are nomadic, on-the-go. They fuse virtual and real. And, here’s the overwhelming point that matters to brands: The new utilities accelerate life itself. They let us live faster and allow us to cram more and more into each multi-tasking moment. The result: We live in a constant blur.

Flash back to an evening in a typical 1960s American living room. Nearly any evening, members of the average American family are glued to the electronic hearth, the living-room TV. Shoe-horned into their entertainment, they passively accept mini-lectures about detergents, frozen foods, hair coloring and beer. Brands enjoy center stage.

Spring ahead to today. The living room is decentralized. To a large extent, so is the traditional family. The idea of a single home TV has vanished. That platform has disappeared, and brands no longer have a center stage to occupy.  Brands are now something we experience out of the corners of our eyes.

Do we still pay attention to brands? Certainly! But in a totally different way.

• They can’t lecture us on their qualities.

• We have to “get them” viscerally . . . intuitively.

• If we choose to scrutinize them, they need to have the right ingredients and provenance. But, that’s verified through the rare scrutiny of a periodic “check-up” we might perform.

• Otherwise, it’s just a flick of the eye or whiff of the scent or click of the container that reassures us we have the right goods . . . and we’re off chasing another experience or task.

In the obvious – that’s where the value is. Creating such obviousness may require brand managers to thoroughly engineer underlying complexity, but complexity is not where consumers wants to go themselves. Consumers want an end-product with elegant, plug-and-play simplicity.

In a world that rockets us from experience to experience, a brand has to be transparently clear with indescribable fidelity. Otherwise, if you’re a brand, you’re nudged off the landscape . . . yet another casualty of blur.

Great brands have a core clarity to them:

• For me, Apple marries easy use with beauty in design.

• The essence of Harley-Davidson is freedom – outfitting confident individuals to assert their true independence.  All the products under this brand reflect a rock-solid individuality.

• Levi’s captures durability and the sense of being a pioneer. It goes back to the roots of the California Gold Rush in the 1850s. But with today’s nomadic, mobile lifestyle, you can be a claim-staking pioneer once again.

Once you have the core right and make it relevant to today’s culture, that’s 80% of the trek. The key is this: Make the core timeless but not lifeless. Viral marketing is the catalyst that builds those vital relationships with today’s brand ambassadors.

Enthusiasm spreads the message. It also unburdens you from having to force-feed passion for the brand. You’re no longer focused on convincing. Instead, your goal is revealing. Others testify to your attributes. For this to happen, you need to give up control. You can only do this reliably if your core brand identity is firmly in hand.

Then the low-hanging-fruit communication at point-of-sale becomes easy to develop. It has a certain effortlessness to it – packaging, showroom, collateral material. All that is harmonized beautifully. People speak to you in today’s language – “What’s happening?” not a stilted “How may I help you?”

Again Apple’s command of retail sets the gold standard. Their associates are artists in active listening. Customers will depart from the Genius Bar or The Studio in visiting an Apple store having bought thousands of dollars worth of product, perhaps even tens of thousands. And they’ll feel good about it! The truth is fundamental: If you can’t sell, you don’t have a brand. Being able to sell core products makes the value of the brand evident, but it is a matter of allowing and encouraging the sale, not forcing it.

Can you get a premium for the good work you’ve done and sell your products at a better price than generics? I’ll buy Pepperidge Farm 15 Grain bread rather than a store-brand because I trust it more. Today’s basics are different from those of two years ago. They are chock full of change and contribute to you enhanced lifestyle. They add value to your everyday life. Today’s basics are smarter. To be vital today, a brand must be much more than standard product. And it must have resounding clarity.

The 17,000+ units in the Starbucks coffeehouse chain today represent one of the clearest brand statements around. It took time and dedication to become as coffee-centric as this business is today, but Howard Schultz and his team have achieved the result. A brand comfortable in own skin doesn’t need acceptance or validation. It says, “Look, I can help you.” It proclaims what it stands for without needing to sell itself.

Every brand manager should be constantly soul-searching about the spirit of the brand, but experience the brand directly and beware of the dangerous hazards of language. Most brand language is woefully dated and belongs to the bygone era of mass marketing, not the awareness of modern brand editors and curators.

Spend enough time in the realm of uncertainty. Do the due diligence. Peek into the world and see what time it is. Size up the industry. Is it really aligned with the market? Or is the industry marked with voids and white spaces, so much so that it is ripe for reinvention? Research the broad market and zero in on your strengths. Being preoccupied with weaknesses drives insecurity. Do what you’re best at. Understand the core of the brand securely enough to draft a battle plan to keep those strengths energized.

Great brands have muscle. That’s not to say they are loud, domineering, or boisterous. The greatest brands have an acute and ongoing capacity to listen . . . to constantly redefine themselves to fit the changing market.

© 2011

Can your brand truly be trusted in the hands of others?

How much discretion do you give a brand . . . unchaperoned and in public space?

To answer these questions, observe what happens to a healthy brand in the hands of passionate enthusiasts. How do you tie a bowtie to “pop” a certain pattern or color field? You’ll find Brooks Brothers fans earnestly debating the like at the Unabashedly Prep website. (http://www.unabashedlyprep.com/site/entry/social-primer-for-brooks-brothers/)

Having been around for nearly two centuries and having cultivated its brand identity with exacting care, Brooks Brothers has considerable brand strength. When it comes to preppy essentials like navy blazers, khaki pants and button-down shirts; Brooks Brothers’ brand loyalty is enormous. Put in the hands of enthusiasts, the core DNA of the brand is grasped and respected with non-verbal certainty.

“Give the brand the corner-office,” is a favorite mantra of mine. The advice implies that the brand is a valued asset. As such, shouldn’t it be zealously controlled and protected? But, if that’s the case, how does that interpretation mesh with another assertion I often make? Customers demand and deserve ownership of the brand. Is it possible to reconcile such seemingly contrary positions? If so, how?

Peter Drucker once made a landmark assertion about brands:

Suppliers and especially manufacturers have market power because they have information about a product or a service that the customer does not and cannot have, and does not need if he can trust the brand. This explains the profitability of brands.

Drucker’s assertion is even truer today in the world of social media as it was in the era of mass marketing. Here’s the heart of the paradox: At the core of every great brand is an undeniable, carefully earned DNA. This powerful code contains the brand’s essence, its uniqueness, its identifiability, its virtues, and often its provenance.

Brand owners – the legal owners of the asset – really function as curators of valuable property. The choice of the word “curator” is no arbitrary one. The formulas for brands may be locked up in vaults, but brands can never be. They are constantly on public display.

Strong brands deserve trust, and that trust will be rewarded with both loyalty and enthusiasm. Brands that let go . . . will go-go-go. It’s that simple.

© 2011

1. Brand differentiation is built on subtleties, not exaggerations.

• Do you know – i.e., know with gut intuition, not with marketing jargon – the subtleties that differentiate your brand versus competitors?

• Have you traced the genealogy of your brand over the years and how it may have been transformed?

• Are you still true to the original brand DNA? In what ways may the brand’s gene pool have been shaken? How can it be solidified and strengthened?

Brand profitability is the consequence of brand strength and not vice versa.

• The truth is we don’t have a clue as to how brand profitability will be measured analytically 5 years from now. A far surer bet comes from commanding the intangibles today. What are social media evangelists telling you are the deep appeals of your brand?

• What are you doing to make your strongest brands even stronger and to prepare for competitive challenges on the horizon?

• Does each brand touchpoint – packaging, ads, and every other channel of customer contact – match the brand’s story and promise?

2. Make your brand articulate to the point of eloquent . . . silence. That’s why a picture is worth a thousand words . . . and why an irreplicable taste, aroma or sound may be worth many millions.

• How many words does it take to explain your brand and what it is targeted to achieve?

• Why does it take words at all? Why isn’t its essence just a whiff  . . . a sensation . . . a subtle reassurance?

• Brands built around the architecture of words drag baggage. They become too slow and too stodgy. Always think: How will I give my brand recognition beyond point-and-click, beyond aim-and-shoot . . . even beyond simple touch . . . to the very verge of the ever advancing forms of hands-free computing?

3. Middlemen – licensees in particular – excel when they seamlessly execute brand-centered scenarios, not when they slap a logo on off-brand spin-outs, cooked up on speculation. An intermediary can only perform expertly when the resource is equipped with a genuine and carefully thought-through brand identity.

• Is every product spin-off and brand extension anchored in authentic brand DNA?

• If you lack the time or resources, using an outside resource to assemble and incubate a brand laboratory is certainly plausible. The key is not to neglect the essential need but to ask yourself: How will I make sure the brand has all the support elements it requires to thrive?

4. Play a part in the good-life moments of everyday experience.

• Are you in touch with the real brand satisfactions as fans of your brand experience it?

• You don’t have to rev like a Lamborghini Gallardo or glisten like a Harry Winston rock to gladden the heart. A perfectly spreadable peanut butter, a smooth-flowing ballpoint, or an effective, ecologically engineered detergent – each provides a sought-after payoff.  As we simplify our lives, the bigger bangs of little thrills mean more. Are you tracking and backing this trend?

• People want to live in a personal universe that is value-centered. Is there a brand conscience in your product or service that you can celebrate? It could be craftsmanship, environmental sustainability, corporate social responsibility or a host of other virtues. But before you tack on mere window-dressing, ask yourself: Is the conscience I’m claiming the brand to have both authentic and credible?

5. Constantly evaluate how you allocate and how you spend your time.

• Brand curation is a full-time job, but good brand-curation is business not busy work. Most of our time is spent on things we don’t do well – that’s a sad fact of life in our world of work. Do you allow yourself to trivialize your day into simply extinguishing fires?

6. Even if you can’t personally dedicate your time to brand curation, don’t let neglect rule the day. Brand curation is a brand survival requirement. Are you responsibly outsourcing or delegating curation if you can’t attend to it yourself?

• Do you spend most of your professional time utilizing your strengths on behalf of the brand? Ask yourself: Can my brand really afford me squandering my strengths?

• Are you also dedicating time to use gut intuition to study the competitors which your reinvented brand will confront?

7. Rate your considerations.

• How carefully have you prioritized brand innovations and enhancements? Is how you spend your innovation time radically different than your plan? Brands that run out of time for innovation sooner or later just run out of time.

• Brands can have large and irreplaceable value. Are you calculating and pinpointing your risks as carefully as you comb for perceived opportunities?

• Lastly, are you relying on reliable gut intuition in rating considerations and creating your agenda . . . or dangerously creating convoluted quantitative models to give you a false sense of security?

© 2011

One assumes that the proportional value of IP assets has soared as the value of tangibles has declined. That may be what the math suggests, but brand IP is not nearly given the respect these numbers suggest they deserve. Call it brand ownership, perhaps, but it is absentee ownership for most brands. Brands should be occupying the corner office. Instead most brands languish in a dreary corporate warehouse of IP assets.

Most brand managers don’t know what it takes to own their brands in a meaningful way. Here are 5 common symptoms of brand strength being compromised. Each reflects a breach of responsible brand curation on the part of those charged with brand management:

• Analytical piecemealing of the brand into fragments either harming or disregarding the brand’s core. Segmenting the brand is a legitimate way to extend the brand franchise into different market segments and fresh channels of distribution. What’s important is that the core identity must never be lost while extending the brand. For a brand like Polo Ralph Lauren, the core is always firmly in place – whether it’s Black Label or Blue Label. The central spirit of high-clarity brands is reinforced through everything that’s being done. When amateurishly segmented, all that’s often left is a common trademark and logo. A brand offering can’t be allowed to degenerate into a basket full of detachable parts!

• Loss of a gut instinct for brand sense. The brand fractionalization described above often neuters an overall sense for a brand’s obligations and opportunities. Brands are a business for managers and are constantly and wrongly seen through the portal of cognition. Consumers drive brands. They eat them. They inhale them. Brands thrive through sensation. Engaging brands offer an appealing allure or eco-friendly cleansing in an otherwise drab, work-a-day world.

• Obsession with brand weakness. The Gallup Organization has had the insight and moxie to cut against the grain of traditional consulting. Rather than dissecting an organization’s weaknesses, their StrengthsFinder assessment program – based on the Tom Rath book – helps organizations discover and optimize what they do best. Study brand strength models. Outfits like Apple, Samsung and Kellogg’s don’t simply bank on their winners. They constantly make their best even better.

• Time-frozen brand perception. Brands are organic. They can be kicked . . . or celebrated . . . or sidelined into anonymity. And, it can all happen on a timescale of weeks or days. We admire brands that are protean in their flexibility, brands that can revitalize themselves on the spin of a dime. That image may sound nice, but what an illusion! Resilience and ingenuity don’t just happen. They’re the result of having brand custodians who understand the same thing differently. They know how to wake up every morning and experience the brand fresh. That’s the ticket to unpacking the next level of brand opportunity.

• A hands-off brand relationship. You can’t ignore innovation. Tinkering in the unrestricted space of a brand laboratory is what keeps a brand vital, adaptable and – above all – honest. Find a way to create and incubate such a laboratory. Launch it either inside or outside your organization. Either way, make sure genuine experimentation and controversy are encouraged, not just permitted. Engaging with the brand is also the most reliable way for management to remain alert to brand subtleties.

Study today’s technological brands of means. Among them are Apple, Google, Amazon, IBM and Microsoft. It’s easy to see how these well-endowed brands sprouted in technology. Less apparent, but perhaps more forceful is the dedication these companies have to making life simpler for their customers. In an iconic, mobile world, consumers will measure all brands by the easy, effortless way they offer solutions. This sort of gut intuition can only be discovered and experienced when brand owners are truly in touch with the IP and minding the store.

© 2011

No doubt the volume of social media to analyze is skyrocketing. According to The Economist article, “the number of tweets per day now exceeds 230m, up more than 100% from the beginning of the year.” DataSift, for example, has the filters to track down “all tweets by men who . . . live in London” and are keen about a particular new product.

The brand stampede to social media has been thunderous. Findings in an October BizReport roundup on brand respondents noted the following:

• “81% of brands want to measure social brand advocacy” and

• “96% use social media for advertising/promotions.”

What started as product placement on scoreboards and films has become part of the digital narrative of everyday life. The rush for a social media presence increasingly shows us how ephemeral that presence can be. When social media endorsements can be bought, they degenerate to the same level as celebrity endorsements in conventional advertising. Also social media offer an addictive rush – the illusions of forceful, immediate impact and the often misleading impression that one is actually doing something meaningful.

The temptation is all too easy to shift brand presence to social media . . . and, then to make an equally great mistake: the assumption that social media has the neat, manageable predictability of conventional advertising.

In June, Janet Meiners Thaeler posted a noteworthy list of “The 6 Biggest Social Media Mistakes Brands Make.” One error really merits attention, and that’s getting “involved in social media without actually getting involved. It’s like getting a phone but ignoring every call that comes in.” You can’t establish a channel of social dialogue and then run it at will as though you’re turning on a faucet.

Large brands, accustomed to their marketing heft, are susceptible to this sort of arrogance. It’s all too easy for a brand to shrug off negative comments or appeals for help. Brands might risk being so cavalier in a one-way communication world. Today conflicts are very much played out in public, and the popular voice is naturally inclined to back consumer Davids locking horns with Goliath-sized brands.

People have a strong, natural drive for balance. It’s no surprise, for example that, as social media become so pervasive; the appetite for privacy has never been stronger. Manufacturers need to be especially wary of the distraction posed by chatter as psychological warfare. It’s not mastery of new forms of hype that will guarantee brand health.

As with any business proposition, skill in asking the right questions wins out in the end. Some timely considerations worth asking about social media include:

• Do we really understand the rules and protocols of social media?
• Are we attempting to overwhelm messages with our style and preconceptions?
• And, instead, are we actively listening to the consumers we are trying to engage?
• Lastly, are we alert to trouble-spots, criticisms and complaints in a way that rises above defensive jargon?

It’s a dedication to inherent product quality and perpetually innovative design that determine intrinsic, reliable brand worth. That’s what gives firms like Apple, Brooks Bros., Harley-Davidson and Patagonia such dramatic advantages. Stick to your knitting has never been more prudent advice, especially when technology reconfigures the art of the stitch every day.

Could social media devalue brands? Ineptly used, the answer is certainly yes. Quantitative analysis of social media can surely be useful. The risk will come if firms attempt to engineer old-style communications solutions. Social media are giving brands a real-life identity . . . and a larger than life accountability as well.

© 2011

One night the prof suddenly appeared in one of the shelters. Several of his pals happened to be there as well and were shocked to run into this hardened skeptic. They all wanted to know: What caused his 180° switch in attitude? “‘[T]here are seven million people in Moscow and one elephant,’” explained the professor, “‘Last night they got the elephant.’”

In a radically unpredictable world, smart people think scenarios. Investment managers are surely keen on this discipline. Once again, simplicity is essential. Center brand scenario-building on a few reliable factors that can help you intuitively anticipate market behavior. If you try to be comprehensive, you’ll smother yourself.

Those critical factors might be diverse as:

• sovereign debt in the Eurozone,
• the growth timetable for Southeast Asian markets,
• or, cotton production in Azerbaijan.

Always streamline the risk and opportunity life signs to what is truly vital for your business. Entrepreneurs especially need to develop a healthy split focus in overseeing their business. You must always manage a brand on two risk planes: operational risk and intellectual-property risk. In either case, train yourself to intuitively recognize what would trigger a major change in business behavior in either domain.

Most managers plan their business in terms of scenarios. Few do so in ways that are intuitively brand-centered.

A recent article on the Bloomberg website discussed the dramatic difference in business attitudes toward risk since the Lehman Bros. collapse. The chief risk officer (CRO) – especially in finance – was once a high-level administrative position. Today, in large banking and investment jobs it can be a route to the CEO-ship and command $10 million-dollar annual compensation package. How is the world changing? According to Brian Leach, Chief Risk Officer at Citigroup, “The CEO has to have a risk mindset and really be able to live that foundational element of risk management.”

Bloomberg article author Jeff Green points out that CROs are mapping out the risk scenario with boards of directors  “to define what the appropriate risk is for the company.” This is a new, but predictable level of control. The wise top management team will anticipate it and learn to navigate this terrain skillfully.

How can you advance the quality of your risk management when it comes to brands? These tips may help:

• Tinker. By tackling problems incrementally, hone a reliable gut instinct for workable magnitudes of risk. Develop a natural certainty in yourself and your team about what is truly perilous and the damage it may inflict.

• Calculate and assimilate fundamental break-even costs. For any brand investment, know what can truly jeopardize your bottom line.

• Associate your gains with genuine risk and energy investment levels. Don’t pretend that high-energy, high-risk approaches are acceptable and sustainable ways to do business. They just aren’t. It’s a grave risk to pretend that results are achievable in a seemingly effortless way when they are not.

• Look for quality external partnerships. Far and away the best solution for many brands is to find the right partners who can help them verticalize the business and / or provide proven expertise in licensing or manufacturing.

The risk scenarios you create are imaging and planning tools which can be enormously helpful in brand development. What’s important is that these scenarios are vivid, compelling, and clearly shared among your team with intuitive certainty. Achieve that standard and you make your brand a formidable competitor – an agile, organic force with real substance.

© 2011

Barbie is clearly a fashion icon in its own world. How would you characterize the essential similarities and differences between Barbie and the fashion brands in The Jones Group?

People don’t realize it, but Mattel’s Barbie is one of the biggest apparel manufacturers. Besides being a major material buyer, Barbie is more into fashions than most fashion companies. The brand has designers, color experts, and specialists who study washes and other technical matters –  albeit on a miniaturized scale.

While the mechanics of Barbie and The Jones Group are very similar, what’s more complicated in the fashion business of The Jones Group is, of course, fit. You never had to worry about that with the 16½-inch plastic doll whose figure never changed. (Or, when it did, we would control it!) So it was much easier to manage the execution of fit. In addition to fit, the real fashion industry requires a lot more speed and agility.

Today you run a huge, multi-branded business with incredible scope. What do you identify as the central challenge?

At The Jones Group, we have a portfolio of wildly different brands, but all of them function within the fashion industry and participate in the language of fashion. Each of them is centered on that powerful word relevance. Executing to keep each brand relevant is the heart of the challenge.

While every brand has its own DNA and set of attributes requiring a different formula, the overarching principle of relevance is universal to our brand management. We particularly want classic, venerable brands to be relevant and growing for the next chapter. I love the challenge: It’s like being a brand doctor with each patient requiring a different prescription.

What kinds of creative and financial investment are necessary to keep brands like Jones New York or Easy Spirit fashionable?

For classic brands, it’s crucial to never abandon your classic customers. They’re the ones who are loyal and who keep you in business. You have to acknowledge who they are and why they love the brand. You need to reassure them that the brand remains relevant for them while you reach out to find new audiences. But, if you allow yourself to get stuck on that first requirement, the brand will get tired and fade away. You need to develop relevance and interest in the brand for new audiences.

The dollar amount will depend on the message you are trying to create for the brand. In today’s marketing world, being able to surgically create a marketing plan is incredibly positive. That includes using PR, social media, blogging, and other online approaches. You have to be smart about where you put your brand and be authentic in that space. The network of potential communications is so vast, the formula may look terribly complicated to a traditional marketer. In fact, the reality is you can spend less and be more effective.

The low-hanging fruit is plotting out how to gain effective presence in these various media. In effect, brands are becoming media companies, aren’t they?

In a simplistic way: If people are talking about us, we are doing our job.

How do you go about managing the strategy and structure of your brand portfolio?

One supports the other, and we’re parallel-pathing both. You can have an amazing strategy, but you need to structure the implementation to support the strategy. You can have an amazing structure, but – if the strategy is missing – then you have people without a cause.

We have some brands with consumer relationships that have lacked a sufficiently distinct voice and relevant perception in the marketplace. At times, we need to put a voice to some very large businesses and that better helps the structure to support the strategy. We work in parallel on both.

Is the significance of this reinvention appreciated both internally and externally?

People have built this remarkable company, and we tend not to look at this transition in quite so dramatic a way. The business is over 40-years-old and one of the pre-eminent multi-branded fashion companies in the world. We are more engaged in transformation than reinvention. We’re architecting the brands and their structure for the next chapter of growth.

A shift has taken place from large-audience push marketing to engaging more sharply defined niches for people to participate with brands. Would you elaborate on how this impacts you?

More than ever, brands are relationships. Individuals choose what they wear, eat or drive based on the relationship with the brand. Once brands could have won solely based on product. Now they must also have a voice. That means content and storytelling. It’s no longer good enough to just be great product. You need to have a voice with an opinion.

Along the way, you’ll find people who don’t like you. That’s OK, because the people who do like you will be even more loyal and will pass their dedication on to others.

People prefer buying from clear concepts, but they also diversify their buying. Does that change the style of brand communication from urging strictly defined emulation to a broader sort of brand guidance?

That’s 100% on target. We’re already there in some of the big branded businesses in the luxury space.

In every major global capital, you can walk the fashion street and see the same stores. We are beginning to develop unique touches and localization – in assortment, story-telling, and store architecture and design. These cues celebrate where the location is, bringing some distinction and separateness to brands that have become to an extent homogenized. The McDonald’s formula that was so successful in making an experience uniform around the world is becoming dated, but we are just at the beginning of the modification moving away from this.

The cookie-cutter lifestyle will need to be customized to some degree through a form of ‘mass customization’. This is a challenge for the brand infrastructure. To create a context, what’s the profile of the brand portfolio at The Jones Group?

We have over 35 brands in the company. Our primary business is done out of the top ten brands. Our biggest brand is Nine West, the global shoe fashion company. On the apparel side, our behemoth brand is Jones New York and we have just begun extending it internationally. Anne Klein is very big for us internationally. Gloria Vanderbilt trailblazed the original designer jean, and we have other brands in our denim division. We also have a jewelry division.

What brand characteristics are decisive for participation in The Jones Group? Is diversity as important as possessing some basic traits in common?

These questions fall into our acquisition strategy. Our criteria aim at specific assets, and the foremost of these is creative talent. We ask: Are we acquiring businesses or partnering with people who really contribute something? That might be marketing savvy, design talent or a special business acumen that adds something to us.

A second factor: Is this or can it become a global brand with the ability to transcend individual geographies? Many brands like to think they can be global but don’t know how to do that. Can the brand transcend its own individual geography? Third: Can the brand leverage itself on The Jones Group scale? We have category expertise across seven major fashion categories. Another factor: What channel is it in? We are focused on the bridge to luxury segment, department-store-to-better. As we look to the future, we are intent on solidifying our presence in the ‘better’ space.

You are clearly an intellectual property (IP) brand-management company that looks to build brand value at a premium and with relevance to an upscale customer. How does this mesh with consumers seeking fresh fashion ideas less associated with larger brands? What role does the smaller-scale artisan crafting new and emerging ideas play in your approach?

People are always trying to find distinctions in brands. Part of fashion is being in the know. There are different audiences in fashion. Being an influencer or discoverer is a key role. Such views are sought after for style direction and cues as to which things will next be big.

Often small businesses or underground designers peddle their product and are discovered by an influencer. Suddenly there’s an avalanche and the story gets told: A new somebody has been first with the coolest thing. The next thing you know, there’s a business out there with potential that can be leveraged. Inevitably that kind of phenomenon demands design talent supported with the right skill sets.

More and more brands rely on collaboration with licensees. Often licensing is viewed as a revenue and royalty collection activity while it is really an operating model for managing IP. Could you describe some of the finer points of selecting and collaborating with good licensees?

Licensing is an exciting piece of any brand plan – when a brand is ready to extend itself into categories where it may itself not be competent, but it could be successful and authentic and add relevance for the core brand.

Licensing can either be a terrific opportunity . . . or the death of a brand. Much hinges on the licensee. It’s almost contagiously easy for a brand to get into other businesses and make money. The licensee must value the brand with the same respect as the brand owner. Otherwise, the licensee may execute product that isn’t ‘on brand’ . . . or create product that isn’t up to the brand’s quality standard . . . or put the brand into inappropriate distribution so that the brand is fragmented.

Picking the right licensee demands an exhaustive criteria list, and the integrity of the licensee’s leadership is one very important factor. Other questions include: What is their core competence? Are they best in class in what they do? What are their retail relationships? How are their products executed? Choosing the right licensee is one of the most important decisions an intellectual property firm has to make.

You are one of the younger senior executives in the fashion apparel industry. You’re perspective on the following question would be a particularly valuable insight: What kinds of operating-style adjustments is it most difficult for older, more senior managers to make in the contemporary competitive marketplace? How might they make adjustments or changes more easily?

The single largest challenge facing most senior executives in industry generally is the language and speed of technology. That includes how forcefully technology drives consumer behavior with its implications for business. If senior leadership denies any of these moving parts, you run the risk of not being relevant and not being able to lead with credibility.

Leaders don’t necessarily have to be fluent in technology, as long as they take an interest, are fundamentally versed and put the right people around you who live in it. There are a variety of methodologies to deal with technology, but – if you ignore it – it’s the beginning of the end.

As a CEO, what keeps you up at night?

The ability to maintain patience and to judge if you’re moving too fast or too slow. You can’t afford to get comfortable running a company like this. You have to be willing to be restless.

© 2011

It’s essential for top managers to embrace brands and to understand the Big Ideas they convey in an intuitive way. There’s a fine line of difference between caring for a brand as an inspired custodian and being an overly zealous proprietor. The trick is maintaining dedicated engagement without letting yourself be carried away with your personal ingenuity. Every brand has its own DNA . . . but don’t fantasize yourself into believing it’s your DNA!

Here are some guideposts in Big (branding) Ideas. Both CEOs and brand managers should be vigilant in addressing them.

Resist the genius trap. Many – perhaps most – great ideas are the result of a team’s collaborative stewardship. Even when an idea is the product of a sole entrepreneur’s sheer ingenuity, you lose traction when you possessively dwell on ownership of that idea. It’s oh-so-easy to be drawn into the limelight. Who doesn’t like to be celebrated for their originality and insight? Remember: Every inch you cede to personal pride reduces your capacity to be objective and agile in maneuvering a Big Idea to maximum potential.

Shun undue complexity. As CEO of Carter’s children’s apparel, Fred Rowan was an astute team builder. When we worked with him in brand development several years ago, he would regularly remind us and his colleagues to “Trust in few things.” Carter’s has prospered as a brand because they have commanded the category of layette sets for newborns. Sustaining that clear idea has required discipline and focus. Over decades, it has also anchored Carter’s with an extraordinary strategic cornerstone.

Be a loyal, but relentless diagnostician. Any “natural” talent in the brand management business gets a shiver of pleasure from seeing opportunities in the market and aligning them with the authentic nature of the brand. Done well, deconstructing and reconstructing the parts and pieces of the brand identity form the heart of brand competence.

As in a good conversation, you discover things as you go along. Fresh ideas become experientially authentic in the moment. A good diagnostician must be a keen and vigilant observer. Maintain that stance and solutions become self-evident. Detached, rigid analysis – no matter how thorough – can never match feedback-centered diagnosis of a brand’s constantly changing vital signs.

Focus on the details that move the brand into the future. Working with David Sculley in preparing the sale of Waterford crystal to KPS Financial Partners impressed this key priority on me. As you can imagine, bridal sales were the heartbeat of Waterford’s merchandise positioning. David wanted the line to reflect contemporary attitudes.

Rather than having just a bridal registry, David wanted both new marriage partners to register. He also saw that today’s consumer wanted giftware that went beyond museum pieces. That included giving classic Lismore stemware a more contemporary signature as well as developing more casual products to capture the “good-life moments” we experience more routinely. These were crucial details that helped transition the brand’s range of opportunity.

Keep it simple. Christopher Johnson – a naming and branding consultant – has just published a worthwhile new book titled Microstyle: The Art of Writing Little. His first paragraph opens with the words “We don’t always have to be clever, thank goodness. Often simply being clear is enough.”

So many brand nuances would be easier to resolve if people confined themselves to plain-speak. So many conceptual words – and “concept” may be the worst one of all – now mean so many things to different people that they have become unintelligible. Especially at the outset of any branding project, stress clear and simple terms.

Stay visceral. For me, distinct personal and experiential icons have unmatched power. The scent of finely tanned leather . . . a confident hand sweeping across a tablet computer screen. These images are not a journey into poetry for its own sake. And words are always a poor second-best to hard-boiled experience. Know both the good and bad of your brand’s physical profile. That may include empathy as you watch your customer struggle with your product labeling in a grocery aisle or attempt to navigate sizing information on your website.

Don’t believe you are engaged in brand intimacy, when you’re just mouthing jargon. Media immerse us in supposedly intimate experiences everywhere. Don’t lip-sync the rhetoric. It’s so easy to fabricate “Big Screen” intimacy into the brand experience. For example, do we delude ourselves to think that attributes like care and warmth are hallmarks of a brand when the real enticers might be the solidity of the stitching or the clarity of the contents labeling? Keep tangibles first and foremost.

Know what you can do. For so long, seduction has been the dominant dynamic of marketing, rather than straightforward communication. Isn’t the side-effect predictable? When we finally land on a Big Idea with plenty of steam and staying power, we think it can do anything! Well it can’t. Brands live in sharply defined, constantly changing spaces. Know the inherent operational issues of your company to make sure the goals are clear and realizable and that the necessary execution can take place.

Big Ideas have indispensable utility. The risks come with that enticing equation: Big Idea = Big Manager. Immerse yourself into every inch of the brand experience, but be ever-cautious about projecting yourself into the brand. Reprising David Ogilvy’s experience with Big Ideas in the advertising world is pertinent. Late in his career, Ogilvy tallied the number of Big Ideas he had generated as not “more than 20.” Further he described a Big Idea as an experience that “wells up” over “the telephone line from your unconscious.” Unconscious and authentic. The more a Big Idea starts and stops with the Big “I”, the greater your risk of shipwreck.

© 2011

In one way, that’s a reflection of opportunity. In another, it’s a statement about risk. It’s always a risk to be absent from the hot conversational centers. It’s riskiest of all to sidestep places where conversation is hot, even when risk itself may be the #1 topic.

Those locations are ever changing. Between 1652 and 1675, the number of coffeehouses in London exploded from one to 3,000. One of them, founded in 1688, was frequented by the seafarers and investors of London’s dock crowd. The proprietor: Charles Lloyd.

In 1696 came the publication of Lloyd’s List. Gradually, the insurance and reinsurance market of Lloyd’s of London took shape. About the same time, Jonathan’s Coffee House became the birthplace for the London Stock Exchange. A crucial point: Commerce closely follows any age’s hot spots for buzz about transactional risks. Once it was Ye Olde Coffee Shoppe . . . today it might be chat rooms and Social Inboxes on Facebook.

It’s also easy to be beguiled about the heady aroma of any new space for brand presence. You can whisk a brand into cyberspace almost effortlessly. But, unless the brand is seaworthy, the voyage will be a rocky one.

Risk has many faces. One of the dominant messages we hear about brand risk is: Brand managers have failed to simplify and clarify their business approaches. Have you tightened up your basic business model? And, even though execution may have become highly complex and detailed; have you kept the brand simple, direct and straightforward – especially for your customers and your investors?

Here’s a checklist of four crucial fundamentals:

• What does the brand stand for clearly and authentically in a crowded universe? Do you have a sure-footed, reliable grasp of brand truth? How do consumers have the opportunity to engage with the brand and help its acceptance and evolution?

• Who is the brand’s core customer? In times past, it may have been the silent loyal shopper. Or perhaps it was the retailer who bought your wares by the truckload. Either was once a reliable proxy for brand acceptance. Today vocal fans and friends are becoming powerful brand drivers. Does your brand strategy pinpoint those people you need to reassure and influence? Do you have reliable ground-up strategies to reach them in authentic ways?

• Is your operational infrastructure sound? Don’t think fancy. Organize basics with the least expense first. And, emphasize cultural transparency. The world surrounding any brand moves at lightning speed. It’s also saturated with complexity. Zero in on high-impact solutions.

• It’s hard to imagine brand modern management without some sort of ‘stage-set’. Everyone needs to taste the same home-baked bread together. That means a place where your team can co-experience product, packaging, collateral materials, point-of-sale, web presence, mobile, and all the other touchpoints. Sure, this fuels creativity. In the long run, it’s also an unbeatable efficiency edge. You can’t email a brand-identity experience, no matter how elaborate or learned the attachments.

All of your colleagues may be equally committed to the success of the brand you are defending and advancing. But we all trek through the weeds and reeds of our individual work-a-day swamp. The biggest risk-reduction favor you can do for your brand: Constantly revisit the brand basics, and snip off the excess. Make sure the basics remain simple and clear.

Do it for the sake of your team, but most of all, do it for yourself. Don’t convince yourself you have a straightforward brand strategy, when it’s become complex and convoluted. In his book The 4-Hour Workweek, Timothy Ferriss quotes the Nobel-Prize winning physicist Richard P. Feynman: “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.” In the risky swamp of vague brand strategies, that is especially so.

©2011

Know and respect historical reality. President Harry Truman had a knack for dispensing bite-sized wisdom. Here’s a chunk that appears in Merle Miller’s oral biography of Truman, titled Plain Speaking:

“The only thing new in the world is the history you don’t know.”

Dig deep to learn the real history of a business and the brands it represents.

When companies try to identify and revitalize their brand identity, they tend to dismiss or gloss over actions that may have seriously damaged the brand in the past. Management often wants to hang on to a vision of the brand which is no longer valid, but emotionally they just can’t give it up. They try to rewrite history and appeal to an appreciation for the brand that has long since disappeared. This syndrome is probably the #1 hazard facing brand managers as a group.

Don’t let brash decision-making masquerade as gut instinct. Over time, the analytical manager has become synonymous with a deliberate, often tortured decision-maker. The seat-of-the-pants, gut-instinct type, by contrast, is depicted as rolling through decisions like a Sherman tank, without a moment’s reflection or a second-guess.

Technology is rewriting this script. The speed with which data can be crunched has accelerated to make data available far faster. Strictly quantitative decision-making is thus made even easier and more dangerous. While it will never be fast enough to account for all possibilities, the data-driven decision maker is more firmly misled into the belief that all the necessary factors are being weighed.

The corresponding temptation for gut-instinct managers is to shun input altogether and act impetuously just to keep up. Using your gut effectively is not pitting your intuition in a drag race against analytic caution.

Making the right decision is the goal. Take time to size things up. Allow the deeper reality to reveal itself, and that may take time. Don’t jump to conclusions. And, don’t share conclusions prematurely or you may bias the very process you want to remain open and genuine. Immerse yourself in perception until you’re truly confident that the vision is clear to you.

If you’re using social media as a gut-instinct validator, you could be headed for a tumble. In the last decade, much has been made about the “wisdom of crowds” – that uninformed masses of people have an uncanny knack for guessing the correct answer to even complex problems.

Some exciting new research out of Switzerland has shed light on crowd thinking. The assumption about crowd wisdom is true, provided the individuals in the crowds don’t talk to each other. Social media, however, are undermining this assumption in important ways – supporting the rapid spread of what may be poorly grounded opinions and proving to be easily manipulated.

According to a May article in Wired, Swiss researchers have found that sharing speculation within a group can cause group wisdom to mislead.

“’Although groups are initially ‘wise,’ knowledge about estimates of others narrows the diversity of opinions to such an extent that it undermines’ collective wisdom. . . . ‘Even mild social influence can undermine the wisdom of crowd effect.’”

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As with any other powerful management tool, gut instinct demands discipline. As you learn to master its perils, confidence will grow; and this resolve will surely be needed to innovate in volatile times.

Gut instinct and ground-breaking adventure are natural partners. So much innovation is achieved by fearless individualists who didn’t have expertise in fields over which they had no prior command:

• Nicolas Hayek, who started out as a reinsurance actuary and lived by the motto of learning new things each day, renovated the Swiss watch industry, co-founded Swatch, and helped pioneer the Smart Car.
• Richard Branson, who first mastered phonograph record retailing, ventured into the “virgin” territory of airlines and has had a redefining impact on the travel industry.

• Andrew Mason graduated with a degree in music from Northwestern in 2003 and dabbled in recording engineering and public policy studies before his immersion in websites led him to found Groupon.

The more comfortable you are with the established ways of thinking in any specialty, the more unlikely it is for you to create new turf. Being overwhelmed by age-old problems generally atrophies creativity. But confident gut instinct – that appreciates both the horsepower and the guardrails – can ignite creative engines of unimagined velocity.

© 2011