Does Size Matter to Become a Brand Leader?

Many people have talked about the need for Canada to have a lager population to not only be relevant on the world stage but to remain a competitive one with their iconic brands.

I vehemently disagree.

A small country such as Swtizerland (around 10 million) has dozens of highly visible brand names suchs as Nestle, Swatch, Rolex, ABB, Hoffman LaRoche, Bauer etc. Over in Sweden (population: 5 million) Volvo, Saab, Electrolux, Ericsson, Sandvik among others have shown how a supposedly little country can play on the world stage.

Interestingly, large countries like Russia, India, China, and Brazil have few global brands that we can name.

In the old mass marketing model country size may have been important. Not today. The only thing preventing Canada (3 times the size of Switzerland, and 7 times bigger than Sweden) from creating more iconic brands is creativity, holistic philosophical thinking, and the risk to take chances that may end up in failure....or a huge global success.

The Weakness of Marketing Communication

Most people when they think of Marketing, they think of promotion (the fourth P) and message communication. While this is still important today, the product/service experience is much more important in creating a strong brand.

Brands provide the bulk of defense against price competition, thus allowing the market to pay a premium for that brand. But this is not because an organization spends more money on advertising or puts out more press releases or even creates a compelling story that goes viral.

The ultimate strength of the brand is based on its performance, not its' promotion - the remark-ability or how purple a product/service is.

While a brand may be initially be launched by its publicity (storytelling) the only sustainable advantage it has is determined by its performance.

In a hyper competitive marketplace companies are realizing that brands are their only hope of gaining attention and respect in an saturated uncaring marketplace. Therefore it is extremely important to see a brand as a promise of value, becoming the organizing concept for all the organization's activities that surround the brand (not the other way around).

If all it took was excellent marketing communication then the dot com boom would still be a boom instead of a big bust in many people's pride and wallets.

The Biggest Misconception of Marketing

Marketing is a terribly misunderstood subject in all circles of life especially when it comes to business and the public's mind.

Companies think that marketing exists to support manufacturing, to get rid of the company's products. The truth is the reverse: manufacturing exists to support marketing. The company can always outsource its manufacturing, but what makes a company is its marketing offers and ideas which is difficult to permanently outsource (although a consultant can help from time to time) as said company would no longer exist. All the functional areas of business: purchasing, finance, R&D, HR exist to help the company achieves its goals in the customer marketplace

Marketing is also often too confused with selling. Selling is only the tip of the marketing ice berg. What is unseen is the extensive market research, development of product/services, the challenge of pricing them right, finding the right distribution, letting the market know about their product, and measuring it's success. It is thus a more comprehensive process than selling.

Selling starts only when you have a product (downstream), whereas marketing starts way before that (upstream) and is a long term investment effort (this may be way CMO's in public companies are often short lived0

When marketing is done well, it occurs before the company makes any product or enter any market; and continues long after the sale.

How To Increase Voter Turnout

Don't be like the simplistic state of Maine and make your ballot question so only PhD's can vote.

"Do you want to cut the rate of municipal tax excise by an average of 55% on motor vehicles less than 6 years old and exempt hybrid and other alternative energy and highly fuel efficient motor vehicles from sales tax and threes years of excise tax?"

Ironically, the Clarity Act is what is preventing Quebec from separating from Canada.

How to go viral in 7 days

Be bold at your wedding.

The stories will last a lifetime.

10 Things Every Entrepreneur Should Know...

Courtesy of Harvey Schachter

1. Make meaning, not money

Most companies founded to make money fail. They attract the wrong kind of co-founders and early employees – people who are too greedy. Instead, entrepreneurs should focus on making their products mean something more than the sum of its components, and the money will follow. Nike’s aerobic sneakers, which cost a few dollars to make, for example, have been sold to women as standing for efficacy, power and liberation.

2. Make a mantra, not a mission statement

Bland, generic mission statements such as “delivering superior quality products for our customers and communities through leadership innovation and partnerships” serve no one but the consultant brought in to develop them. Instead, keep it short and define yourself by what you want to mean to consumers. Nike stands for “authentic athletic performance,” while FedEx is about “peace of mind.”

3. Leap ahead

Instead of just trying to stay a little bit ahead of competitors, find a way to leap ahead. The goal of a company, say, producing the early daisy-wheel printers, wouldn’t be to develop more font sizes for Helvetica but break through with the laser printer.

4. Roll the DICEE

In product design, you need to roll the DICEE – Mr. Kawasaki’s acronym for five important concepts: D is for deep, or thinking about features that go beyond the norm, as sandal maker Reef Fanning did by building a bottle opener into the sole of its shoes. I is for intelligence, as seen in the design of Panasonic’s BF-104 flashlight, which uses batteries of three different sizes to accommodate the random mix of extra batteries people have around the house. C is for complete, or being not just a product, but including support and service. The first E is for elegance, since beauty matters. And the second E stands for emotive, since great products, like those from Harley-Davidson, generate strong emotions.

5. Be crappy

Your innovation doesn’t have to be perfect and indeed can have elements of crappiness to it. Twitter, he says, has many flaws, but is changing people’s habits.

6. Polarize people

Try to be all things to all people and you often deliver mediocrity. The boxy Toyota Scion xB looks ugly to some people but very cool to its devotees.

7. Let 100 flowers bloom

You never know from where your innovations will flower, so let as many blossom as possible, bringing them to market to see if they attract any attention from customers. Avon Products’ Skin-so-Soft cream became popular as a mosquito repellent. “Learn who’s buying your product, ask them why and give them more reasons. That’s a lot easier than asking people who aren’t interested, ‘why not,’ and trying to change their minds,” he says.

8. Churn, churn, churn

Listen to feedback from customers, and continually improve your product. That’s difficult for innovators, since they often had to ignore the naysayers to get their product launched.

9. Niche yourself

The best products or services are unique and offer value. Successful companies create a separate niche for a high-value offering.

10. Follow the 10-20-30 rule

When pitching to venture capitalists, use no more than 10 PowerPoint slides, keep the pitch to 20 minutes, and employ a 30-point font size in the presentation to keep it simple, as well as readable. The goal of your pitches isn’t to walk home with a cheque, but simply to not be eliminated from consideration.

What Do Your Customers Really Want?

Interesting Post on this topic here.

I especially like the article for calling out "feature creep". Too often marketers just add more bells and whistles to products that creates artificial differentiation.

If you can't explain your product, service, or idea, in 10 words or less, kill it.