Wake Up And Use My Product

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OK, I have to say that the promotion Axe body spray has developed for use in Japan is one of the most brilliant ideas I’ve read about in a long time. A perfect match of audience and appeal. A perfect blend of timing and technology.

What am I talking about? It’s Axe’s Wake-Up Call service, of course. Where young Japanese males (old too I guess) visit the Axe website, enter their cell number and get a daily wake-up call from a young, attractive woman who reminds the customer to remember to spray on some Axe and smell great.

I know this isn’t Japan, but this idea is just so good it would probably work anywhere. It just demonstrates again for the hundredth time how important it is to know your customer.

According to an article on the website of Direct Marketing News, Unilever discovered that 70% of Japanese consumers use their mobile phones as alarm clocks too. So they capitalized on their audience’s existing behavior and linked that with a way to help them do something they were already doing more enjoyably.

Plus, it is just a great way to dramatically boost product usage. What could be better than getting permission every day to call and remind the customer about your brand and tell them to use your product at a time and in a way that almost guarantees the reminder will be effective.

This is the perfect example of making the customer the focus of the brand and the brand communication. If you don’t engage the customer by appealing to his desire to do something better, your communications are just so much background noise.

To read the rest of the article at dmnews.com.

To talk to someone about helping your brand connect better with your customers, contact us today by e-mail or phone, 903-534-5220.

The Most Interesting Campaign In The World

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By creating a no-name, silver haired mystery-man, Dos Equis’ branding has found a new genre of storytelling  that creates a following looking to jump on the bandwagon of the most interesting man in the world.

How often do we see AARP members hawking products with a target demo of 20- and 30-somethings?  Seems like an odd and misplaced strategy, but the now infamous and ongoing Dos Equis campaign has done just that.  ESPN Sportscenter talkies quote his heroic tales when colorfully giving us the days sports highlights.  One daily comment of his heroics on the Dos Equis Facebook page is quickly followed by hundreds of comments mimicking the “most interesting man in the world”, creating yet another platform for the brand to go viral within the exploding social media world.

The Dos Equis campaign began three years ago in a few regional markets mostly clustered in the southwest.  The message caught on so quickly that the Mexican-based beer company quickly gained distribution deals throughout the United States, with sales soaring month over month.  At the moment, there seems to be no end in sight to the tales of a man who, we are told, has a house that looks like the Myans built it, because they did.

Branding campaigns typically take more of a straight line between their product or service and the brand itself.  Dos Equis has set fire to that concept by creating a character who seems to have much more interesting things on his agenda but, after a day of swimming with the sharks, always seems to have time for a relaxing gathering with beautiful people hanging on his every word, and of course a Dos Equis.

While the campaign has certainly captivated millions, there is a great lesson in the genius of the campaign itself.  Branding messages typically stray very little from the simple message of the features and benefits of their products.  Dos Equis has discovered that by creating an enormously popular character who in turn prefers the Dos Equis brand, the tidal wave of people jumping on “the most interesting bandwagon” does the branding for them.  A recent article on Slate analyzes this campaign further and is well worth the read.  Branding can have a humorous edge and create a following in the most unexpected ways.

For more on this unique campaign, check out the May Slate article here.

To talk to someone about the difference-making value of a brand for your business, contact us today by e-mail or phone, 903-534-5220.

Brand Benefit #3: It Keeps Customers Loyal

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There are many good reasons why brand development can be a difference maker for your business. This is the third of ten posts highlighting those reasons for your consideration. Read the previous post.

When customers think of your brand before the competition and trust it to deliver a positive benefit for their investment, they're much less likely to seek alternative solutions.

This is the glue of brand loyalty. It creates an appealing expectation with the communication of a clear brand promise and builds powerful preference through the daily fulfillment of that commitment.

So customers regard your brand as a consistent solution they count on to make their life or work easier. To save them time. To eliminate the worry of dissatisfaction. To create a comfortable routine that produces predictably satisfactory results.

And, not surprisingly, customers who are satisfied tend to buy higher volumes, with greater frequency and less sensitivity to price.

Read about the other 9 brand development benefits now.

To talk to someone about the difference-making value of a brand for your business, contact us today by e-mail or phone, 903-534-5220.

More Complete Literature. Lower Production Cost.

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Two of the biggest problems with printed literature is keeping it current and cost efficient. For more and more industries, the pace of change is dramatically accelerating. Is there a better solution than pdf files?


Cornerstone recently completed a project for Temple-Inland involving the electronic publishing of a large, multi-document product resource binder to eventually replace a printed binder targeted at commercial construction architects and specifiers.

This audience needs a lot of information. Not just the physical dimensions of a building product, but how it’s installed, what industry tests it has passed, what it can contribute toward environmental certifications, where it has been used before, what it is made of, how it is designed into fire-resistant assemblies and many other factors.

Yes, this data is on the company website and published in multiple pdf files. But the online binder is designed to put this entire library in one document that's faster and easier to browse, search, save and share.

It functions a lot like a traditional printed binder but... Loads faster than large pdf files do. Prints single pages or multiple pages more conveniently. Includes animations, audio and video. Links to other documents internally or externally. Presents thumbnail page views with search terms highlighted. Can be shared along with a brief note via email or multiple social media tools. And can be navigated a page at a time or by calling up an always available table of contents.

Plus, maybe best of all for someone who knows data will change constantly and require frequent updates, it can be updated quickly and easily one page at a time or in groups without the hard costs of reprinting.

And the benefits keep going, but for blog brevity, I’ll stop here. So if all this sounds interesting, review the online binder yourself.

If you want to know more about doing something similar for your own brand, contact us today by e-mail or phone, 903-534-5220.

Branding In A Challenging Economy

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Ad Age report finds that aggressive branding during economic downturns creates unique opportunities.


One piece of branding news that caught our attention recently can be found in an extensive piece of research by Advertising Age magazine.  The headline of the research is that overall ad spending fell over 10% in 2009, during one of the most painful recessions in decades.  But a deeper look into the numbers reveals that 26 of the top 100 brands actually increased their advertising spending as the nation’s economy struggled.  The result?  Of those 26 brands that expanded their spending, 70% saw a corresponding increase in sales during 2009.

When a brand’s revenue falls or profits begin to dive, one of the first reactions is often to find ways to reduce expenses.  This strategy makes sense as often a good crackdown on expense lines reveals waste and opportunities to make a company more profitable.  One flaw in many expense-reduction reviews, however, is clearly visible in this Ad Age report.  During tough times, marketing dollars are often seen more as a discretionary line of expenses that makes for a juicy target, rather than a revenue-generating opportunity.  As competitors pull back marketing budgets, a hole opens in the market to gain more market share often with more value, created by more competitive advertising costs.

As this article reveals, more times than not when a brand “leans forward” with its marketing as competitors are moving the other direction, the result can translate into greater brand awareness and increased sales.  As economic conditions cycle back in a recovery, those companies who seized the opportunity to raise awareness of their brand find themselves in a much better position than those who ran for cover.  There are opportunities in every type of economic cycle, but far too often we see companies passing on opportunities to increase brand awareness at the exact time their competitors open the door.

Read the entire Advertising Age report.

To talk to someone about building your own strong brand, contact us today by e-mail or phone, 903-534-5220.

10 Great American-Made Products

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OK, call this what it is, a blatant flag-waving, Fourth of July, don't you love America blog post.

We're linking here to an article from CBS MoneyWatch.com that highlights 10 American-made products that are considered exceptional by consumers and experts alike.

The article quotes the fact that the United States is still the world’s largest manufacturing economy, producing $1.6 trillion of goods each year, or 21 percent of global production. That’s nearly as much as Japan (13 percent) and China (12 percent) combined.

The companies are from a mix of industries and locations throughout the country. And as you might guess, the reason we are featuring this article is not just for its feel-good value, but also because each of these products also represents a strong brand that will help maintain its perception of value for years to come.

Read the article for yourself.

To talk to someone about building your own strong brand, contact us today by e-mail or phone, 903-534-5220.