What's Branding Got to Do With It??

The future is now. Are you ready?

2010-04-29T11:03:00.003-05:00

PRESS PLAY >> NOW TO VIEW KEN'S WELCOME MESSAGE.

This year's GRMA Leadership Summit was a real eye-opener for those of us who monitor retail trends and opportunities. There's no question that to build our brands today means that we have to be more responsive to change than ever before. It's not just a matter of getting on the bandwagon of the new technologies and media, but it requires marketers to re-think their programs and strategies and to constantly be ready to adjust how they are going to reach today's consumer with their messages. Two of the speakers at this summit, Ray Kurzweil and Rob Conway were particularly visionary with what they see happening in technology and mobil media. I wanted to share my notes with you this month to give you some of the highlights as I reported in GRMA's blog as well. These presentations brought a telescopic look into the future. The speakers were beyond being experts. They brought us an opportunity to look down the road at how technology is going to effect retail business but how it will affect our lives in the years to come.
You should have been there.

8:00am to 9:30am KEYNOTE ADDRESS: Innovation in an Era of Accelerating Technologies
Ray Kurzweil, Famed Futurist, Visionary and Bestselling Author,
Transcend and The Singularity is Near

Reading Ray Kurzweil’s bio and introduction, I knew we were in for an experience. When he started to speak and modestly talked about some of his accomplishments and the people he has dealt with, I was in awe and felt I could relate to those who have climbed the mountain for an audience with the Dalai Lama. Here is renowned inventor and genius, who not only has lived through the information boom of the last 4 decades, but has been instrumental in much of what has happened, and has predicted much of it. The “restless genius” (as the Wall Street Journal has called him) said that the pace of change is accelerating exponential and that the next decade will bring in unprecedented change and innovation. The fact that 400 million people already on Facebook—an idea that hatched just 6 years ago—is just an indication that soon everyone on the planet will have a cell phone and that will bring them access to knowledge that has never been so readily available to everyone.

While the growth is exponential, the size of the hardware reduces at a similar rate (think Univac compared to iPhone). And this underscores the potential that we will be able to infuse our bloodstream with mini-computers the size of a single cell that will help ward off cancer or administer insulin or other antibodies is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the potential for changing life as we know it. And we will know it longer than ever. Some 15 years more to be added to our life expectancy—so much for retirement soon. Solar energy is also growing exponentially and within 20 years, Ray predicts, it will replace fossil fuels as our energy source. For us marketers, we need to know that human intelligence is growing in the same way and if our brands are going to continue to succeed in the long run they must grow and change along with the smarter customers. In education, we need to recognize that all the new technology provides knowledge on their belt and in their hand. So we don’t need to teach them facts as much as helping them know how to find the information with the available tools. We talk about social networking and mobile marketing and we are still learning. But the realization of the revolution that we are in requires us to think more outside the box than ever and tap in to the expertise that is required (but is available) to help our companies, our brands, and our people keep up with the pace of an ever-changing world.
Check out www.kurzweiltech.com for more information on this brilliant man and his teachings.

9:30am to 10:30am Integration of Mobile and Wireless Technologies and
The Real Impact on the Consumer Experience
Rob Conway, CEO, GSMA, recognized as the most influential person
in telecom in 2009 by GTB Power 100 Magazine

“GSM is the technology behind the mobile platform that enables universal interaction via mobile devices. “
And if you stop and think about this statement, you’ll understand what an important role Rob Conway plays in the future of the world today.

“Mobile 4.5 Billion Connectiona, Fixed 1.1 Billion Lines.
Mobile will overtake desktop users in 2013 (predictions)”
Mobile marketing is not just an important trend. It’s obviously the future of where we need to be if we are going to keep pace with today’s consumer. They are moving there fast and we, as marketers, need to run to keep up with them. Google has now said that they are “mobile first” and judging by the proliferation of Apps being sold to iPhone users like myself, they are right on track.
Only 4% of advertising spending is online today, but will grow exponentially as more people go mobile for information and more. Look at how many iPhones have been sold. And the iPad, according to Rob, is the next revolution that has already started. One of my fellow attendees demo’d his iPad for me and I was amazed and wanted one for myself. We will soon, I know. This is just the tip of the iceberg when you consider that an average iPhone user downloads 10 Apps per month and spends 30 minutes a day doing research. It’s not just a phone for sure.
Brand Apps are the next big opportunity, but you have to make sure it’s not just a key to getting to your ad. It has to provide a service (like priceline.com’s app—hotel negotiator. Check it out.) If makes the user’s life easier, then there is potential—big potential.
And iAd’s are on the way. Where you’ll be able to advertise your store, product or service to just the right person via their mobile device right when they want it and where they want it. And they will be able to act upon it right away in real time.
I could go on. Augmented reality will help customers more than ever to find your store and your brand right where they are. And mobile coupons are way more than a store or product coupon that you can print out. They convert your device into the coupon which can be redeemed with a wave of your iPhone at the store. Wow.

INNOVATE. MARKET. OR….?

2010-03-18T20:29:00.008-05:00

A couple weeks ago in San Francisco, I heard more information about mobile and Internet marketing, as well as social networking. It was more than my 64KB mind could absorb! And it wasn’t redundant at all. There is so much happening today and retailers and marketers are moving much more quickly now to take advantage of the tremendous growth being experience both by the customers and by the companies staying ahead of the game.

There was a great deal of revelation for me as I listened intently and then cast my evaluation of the speaker immediately via text message on my iPhone. Only thing that was challenging was spelling the presenter’s name correctly. Some fascinating information on how fast it’s growing. For example, the iPhone I have has more power than a seven year old Mac computer. So we have PC’s in our pockets, not cell phones or cameras. On average today in the US, over 400 text messages per person are being sent from one pocket PC to another. We have surpassed the rest of the world, which we were trailing significantly just a couple years ago. It took 2 years for iTunes to download 300 million apps. They hit the 3 billion level only 3 months after hitting the 2 Billion mark.

I could go on, but I think you get the point that this revolution in communication and marketing is moving faster than anything we’ve ever seen and it’s only going to accelerate as iPads and Kindles become commonplace. Yes, Peter Drucker was right about the importance of innovation several decades ago, but he is prophetic today.

The companies making all this technology work for them are the ones who are innovating with the way they reach their customers in their new mobile lifestyle. But let’s not forget the other key element…marketing. As I said in an online interview (link to it) a few months ago, if we get so caught up in keeping up with the technology that we forget to get back to the basic principles of effective marketing and branding, then we aren’t going to win. The most important thing is to remember that we are still talking (however, digitally we do it) to real people who still want to see, feel and touch the merchandise or experience the store after they do all their homework on their pocket PC. We can’t leave traditional media out of the equation either. Apple didn’t get to their skyrocketing numbers by just communicating online. It’s traditional media campaigns (with not-so-traditional messages) that have set the pace for creativity and break through marketing. Microsoft does some of the best print and broadcast as well. However, it’s the branding and the marketing strategy behind those messages that makes it all work. Best Buy understands that it’s got to market as aggressively today using both traditional and new media—but it’s making them work together to reach today’s savvy customer.

Macy’s is doing a lot to step up its online activity, yet it’s being out performed by Stage Stores (link) who has made a major commitment recently to technology to support their 758 stores in 39 states. Stage maintains their brand positioning that made the original stores the preference of the local markets they serve. With a 4th Quarter increase in net income of nearly 10%, Stage has taken it’s flagship store brands and made them even stronger within their markets. They’ve used technology to work smarter and traditional marketing to keep close to their established customers.

There continues to be a lot of news out there and the potential marketing benefits of the FaceBook, Twitter, YouTube et all, are yet to be seen despite their unbelievable growth. However, while trying to stay on top of new technology and capabilities, it’s critical to also keep on challenging your organization to innovate with new ideas that will excite customers. We need to market them more effectively to keep the customers coming back after they press the power button on all those pocket pc’s.

DON'T MISS THIS YEAR'S GLOBAL RETAIL MARKETING SUMMIT IN ST. PETERSBURG, FL, AT THE DON CE SAR HOTEL ON APRIL 22-24. ROB CONWAY, THE MOST INFLUENTIAL PERSON IN TELECOM, WILL PRESENT AS WILL AUTHOR RAY KURZWEIL AS PART OF PROGRAM THAT WILL HELP YOU BECOME BETTER INNOVATORS AND MARKETERS. GO TO http://www.globalretailmarketing.com

BRANDING TO YOUR PEAK OF SUCCESS

2010-02-17T17:16:00.005-05:00

PRESS PLAY>> NOW FOR A SHORT VIDEO MESSAGE FROM KEN.

Being in the mountains is always invigorating to me , especially when I am skiing. Looking backup the mountain at the peak from which we just descended provides a great sense of satisfaction and accomplishment. Then looking up to the next peak always provides a challenge of impending exhilaration knowing there is another run to be conquered and a spectacular view to behold.

On my recent return trip from Colorado, I found it ironic the book I tossed into my case was Spencer Johnson’s (author of Who Moved my Cheese?; One Minute Manager) latest book—Peaks and Valleys. (http://peaksandvalleysthebook.com )Like his other books, this was another quick and easy read with the key message all summed up on one page (page 90 this time) so you couldn’t miss the lessons to be learned. In short, it’s a book about the peaks and valleys of our life (career or company) and how we must keep an eye on the peaks, which provide excitement, success, and perspective rather than muddle along in the valleys of our routine and mundane activities. I recommend the book to give you some quick perspective, especially in these economic down times and the personal struggles that accompany them.

It’s also a good lesson on branding and marketing. If we allow ourselves and our companies to get caught up (well, actually down) with the challenges of the day-to day-price wars in the valley and lose sight of the potential and vision that we had in mind when we developed our brand strategy, the chance for success and for differentiating our stores, products or services from the other competitors sloshing it out in the valley is extremely limited.

In particular, I look at stores that have abandoned any marketing or branding activities in order to cut costs or accelerate their price promotions in order to convince customers that they should shop them instead of the stores across the parking lot or street. Most of the remaining department stores have totally forgotten about trying to give people a reason to chose them over their discount or specialty competitors and in the process have essentially lost a reason for being. The recent consolidation of shopping center developers reflects the growing irrelevance of major malls and centers that are not in tune with today’s consumers’ shopping habits and preferences. In fast food chains, the preoccupation with seeing who can sell more $1 double cheeseburgers has totally ignored that customers really want a sandwich that simply tastes great. (Five Guys figured out that people really do want a great hamburger and fries even if it costs 3-4 times more than McDonald’s or Burger King’s options).

If we consider that we should keep our eyes and strategies focused on the peaks of a strong branding strategy that itself differentiates us and creates a relationship with the customer faster than getting out of the valley of our sales doldrums. Like the main character in Peaks and Valleys, getting out of the mess we have created ain’t easy, but the climb back up to the peak is both satisfying and exhilarating. And it provides the perspective to make our business more successful and our brands more relevant on an ongoing basis.

Back to the slopes!!!

PS: For some exhilarating thinking about your brand, plan on attending the new Retail Innovations and Marketing Conference in San Francisco on March 2-4. This unique event brings the best of the former Retail Advertising Conference with the online thinking of Shop.org into a new forum that will help keep your eyes on the peaks of success. Check out the details at http://events.nrf.com/innovate10/public/Content.aspx?ID=6394&sortMenu=103000&exp=2%2f17%2f2010+1%3a56%3a12+PM.

“BRAND” OF OPPORTUNITY

2010-01-25T17:50:00.005-05:00

CLICK ON PLAY>>>TO VIEW THIS MONTH'S VIDEO FROM THE JAVITS CENTER

The National Retail Federation’s annual convention in New York was a buzz of activity this year with an increase of over 20% in attendees from all over the world seeking new ideas to improve their business. Granted, most of them came to see the latest technology and systems to help improve operations. However, for those who attended the educational sessions (one of which was presented by Robyn Winters and myself where we introduce our Brain Branding concept) there was plenty of information and opinion confirming now is the OPPORTUNITY to capitalize on business. Terry Leahy, CEO of Britain’s successful Tesco stores said it best when he said that “Success in this turbulent economy will be determined by staying focused on what your “brand stands for.”

Halleluiah! Someone who believes that it’s not just getting more aggressive with promotions and sale events to woo our reluctant (or bored) customers back to the stores. It truly is a time to be opportunistic. Last year when the economy was plunging out of control, Hyundai motors introduced their program that allowed you to return your new car if you should lose your job shortly after you purchased it. Not many took them up on the offer, but many certainly did take notice as Hyundai produced the best results in the car industry in 2009.

Sam’s Club just announced that it was eliminating 11,000 jobs by outsourcing their in-store demonstrators to a company that specializes in having motivated, professional demo’s in the stores. Some see it as a budget cutback (which it is) in hard times, but I see it as an opportunity that Sam’s is taking to get more competitive with Costco and add more excitement to the shopping experience in their warehouse stores. Not only will the demos be more fun, but I suspect there will be an increase which will induce trial and add to the loyalty of their customers.

The New York Daily News is fighting back against the circulation losses and advertiser cutbacks by joining forces with Yahoo (along with several other newspapers) to provide their local advertisers the ability to combine the power of the traditional mass media with the growth of online and social networking. The big chains, like JCPenney have been converging successfully for some time, but the local retailers haven’t had the opportunity or savvy to make it happen. Now, they can and are able to make it happen with their local advertising rep from the paper.

Publix once again made the list of the top companies in the US to work for. They also continue to get more grocery shoppers to come into their stores than any other in their markets by constantly improving the shopping experience (“where shopping is a pleasure” is their slogan and they live up to it, everyday.} They seized the opportunity when Albertson’s withdrew most of its stores in Florida by gobbling up most of the sites (many of them better than their existing ones) and refurbishing and remodeling them to make a loyal customer even more so while gaining almost all of the existing Albertson’s shoppers. They have also defended their brand position against the price choppers at Walmart and WinnDixie, by strengthening their private label program and by putting together a Buy One, Get One campaign that keeps the price shopper without weakening their brand position.

Now is the time to look around, redefine your brand position and take advantage of the opportunities to grow your business in spite of the media’s obsession with bad economic news.

Want more insights? Take a look at an article by Marc Albright, Business writer for the St. Petersburg Times who recently interviewed me about Brain Branding and the importance of branding today. The link is:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/retail/marketing-consultant-seeks-to-win-over-consumers-whole-brain/1064531

"'tis the season for great branding"

2009-12-17T12:34:00.003-05:00

press play>>now to view Ken's Holiday Message.
“‘Tis the season for great branding”

Traditionally, the holiday season has been the time for advertisers, especially retailers, to strut their best, most creative stuff and try to capitalize on the peak selling season. The newspaper used to be a showcase of great photography and copywriting. Television spots reached out to your hearts and for a while ignored the price-item frenzy to help put their brand on the top of Santa’s wish list. The postman needed a lift-truck to deliver all the great catalogs and wish-books that we kept on our coffee tables throughout the season. And recently, innovative programs (like OfficeMax’s “elfing” promotion) have put the fun back into the holidays.

I won’t say much about the print ads other than to note that Kohl’s and JCPenney are making a lot of printers and paper mills quite merry this Christmas. Enough already! And how many red catalogues can Macy’s possibly mail with an equal number of 15% discount cards?, As I’ve said before, Sam’s club has the best print out there.

For television, I decided to take a Thursday evening and watch the entire NBC schedule to see what great spots might be out there. I’ve determined that the programming director for the network must be a junior high kid with a warped sense of humor. Advertising-wise, it was just one big disappointment. Target (usually my favorite) missed the mark this year. Best Buy, TJ Maxx, and many others overdid the singing choruses. If you can’t do great creative, make up a parody of a Christmas carol and get a bunch of lip-syncing actors to join in the fun.?

But, once again as it has been for many years, there was a shining exception. I took the time to watch a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie and as always was not disappointed. The movie had a great message and great acting. However, the commercials were the best ever. Not only does Hallmark remind us of why greeting cards are a memorable way to connect to someone we care about, but they also remind us of the holiday traditions (as in ornaments with meaning) that make this such a wonderful time for families. And they didn’t stop there. With a third message at every break, reminding us that Hallmark has been doing it for over 50 years with nostalgic looks back that are real—not contrived. The messages are great for an industry facing more online competition, but they also solidify a great brand that has been consistent in quality and emotional value. When you care enough to send the very best comes alive. And Hallmark does it in their stores, with their products (besides the cards) and with a brand that people love. To view some of them, copy this link to your web browser: and enjoy the best of the season.
http://www.hallmark.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/article%7C10001%7C10051%7C/HallmarkSite/GoldCrownStores/GCS_COMM

MERRY CHRISTMAS! .

INVITATION: Don’t miss this year’s annual National Retail Federation Convention at the Jacob Javitz Center in New York, January 10-13. Robyn Winters, a “Whole Brain Thinking” expert and I will be introducing our new program – BRAIN BRANDING! This is a new, unique way to increase your market share and develop more customers.
Don’t miss a presentation that take a whole different look at branding. It's at 9:45am on Wednesday, January 13.

Branding and Online Marketing and Networking. Watch now.

2009-11-16T20:53:00.001-05:00

PRESS PLAY>> NOW TO VIEW KEN'S OPENING COMMENTS AND INSTRUCTIONS.

THEN CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING LINK TO VIEW KEN'S INTERVIEW WITH TERRY BROCK.
http://www.terrybrock.com/marketingkenbanks/

Teach Your Marketers Well!

2009-10-05T14:22:00.001-05:00

PRESS PLAY>> NOW TO VIDEO TO VIEW KEN'S OPENING MESSAGE.

I just finished teaching my third class of graduate students at Schiller International University (www.schiller.edu). Most of the students are from other countries and nearly all are not planning a career in marketing. However, it’s a requirement for their MBA and fortunately the school recognizes the importance of marketing as a key to their future success. I have to admit I’m a bit jealous of the students with regard to their text book—Essentials of Marketing, 11 th Edition by Perrault, Cannon and McCarthy. Unlike the textbooks in my college days, this one really is a wonderful study guide.rather than simply well written text and theories. It’s well-organized, , up-to-date, gives many examples and a helpful appendix to help figure out the numbers as well. Additionally it includes a CD, which not only administers the quizzes on each chapter, but also provides video and audio examples of great advertising to help make the points. There is an excellent marketing plan coach included too that helps to guide the student step-by-step in preparing an effective marketing plan.

What it doesn’t have, however, is symptomatic of what’s wrong with today’s marketers. Out of over 600 pages of information, only 7 (yes seven) pages are devoted to branding. And these deal primarily with logos and package design, trademarks, etc. Never does it refer to branding as the key to the marketing strategy and the underlying DNA of the product or service that makes the rest of the marketing functions work.

When I look at all of the retailers and manufacturers whose businesses are suffering these days, I can’t help thinking that maybe they only learned their marketing from a text book like this. Some of the campaigns and efforts by many stores out there may be creative or aggressive, but lack substance—or a reason for being. I believe that they should stop blaming the economy and look at the lack of branding that goes into their marketing instead. The auto companies are classic examples of this. Stores like Circuit City, Linens N Things, Bombay Company all did a lot of “marketing” (actually, advertising), but obviously lacked a strong brand strategy that would have helped their brand resonate with the consumer.

So who does it right these days?? I get asked that question a lot and my immediate answer is Apple. As a retailer and manufacturer, they get it right. I won’t go into the product branding that is already legendary behind their Mac’s, iPods, and iPhones. Instead, let’s look at their stores, where they meet with their customers face-to-face.
Recently, I converted to a Mac and iPhone, and the experience has been a revelation to me on how great branding can be in retail. The stores are fun, exciting, interactive and convenient. The merchandise is out so people can try it out, get information and explore before one of their many, well-educated Apple people offer assistance. Yes, they live up to the personality portrayed in the Mac vs. PC commercials. They are not only knowledgeable, but they are also really nice people who actually like to help you select the right product, get the right accessories, and answer any questions (and if you’re converting from a PC, there are many questions!). Their One-to-One training (link: http://www.apple.com/retail/onetoone/) is easily accessible, on time and really helpful. The product design and the follow-up communication is simple and understandable. And it all seems to work very well. On one of my one-to-one appointments, I arrived at the store at about 11am. The shopping center (one of Tampa’s best and most successful) was basically empty—except for one store—Apple. The line was cued outside because it was so busy inside—and nobody was complaining. The iPhone GS had just be introduced early that week and that created more demand, but to take care of the customers and keep the interactivity going as planned, the cue was necessary. The people taking care of customers were busy, but smiling and not one of them rushed through their transactions. There were no SALE or CLEARANCE signs out front, like most of the other retailers in the center. In short they were living up to the brand and the customers loved it. That must be why Apple’s performance continues to excel. (Third Quarter revenue, margins, and profits all were up substantially. ) Steve Jobs has been a great leader, but he’s not the only one responsible for this continued performance. It’s a great brand, with a great strategy, implemented very well.

Apple’s strategy, like their advertising, is probably concise and to the point. I’m sure they devote more than seven pages to branding.

The Worst Thing That Can Happen?

2009-07-12T13:57:00.009-05:00

PRESS PLAY >> NOW FOR A BRIEF WELCOME MESSAGE FROM KEN

A couple weeks ago, I attended the CRM Conference at the Sheraton Chicago hotel. Since I was staying a couple blocks away at the Hilton, I packed up my laptop and files when I left that morning for a full day of sessions. I got there in time to catch breakfast in one of the ballrooms just before the morning sessions started. I quickly put my brief case on a chair at a table near the buffet and occupied by a couple friends who were finishing up. Got my eggs and quickly sat down and put my bag on the floor next to my chair and quickly finished as everyone left when the session was announced. I had a quick call on my cell and then got up to leave as well. Then it happened. I reached down and my bag was gone! I searched under the table at least 10 times, asked the wait staff, caught up with the people who were sitting with me (assuming one had picked it up by mistake). No luck. It was gone.

I quickly notified the meeting planners, one of whom remembered seeing a suspicious male in the breakfast room and was going to call the meeting director when the person disappeared. She later identified a photo that the hotel security had as that of the person she saw. The confirmed it was a professional job and that my case was probably already gone to the organized ring that steals these for the hardware and for the info stored inside. From there, it was a day from hell—contacting security, the Chicago PD, the credit bureaus, my credit card companies (Amex was great) and several other contacts. My friends and acquaintance all extended their sympathies when they learned my fate and to the person said that this had to be “the worst thing that can happen”.

Hopefully, it won’t happen to you. Here are some tips to help avoid the same fate.

CONFERENCES
I have learned that this is becoming a more common occurrence at conferences and meetings. Professionals are on the lookout for nice (my Tumi leather fit the bill), bulging (laptops and cameras and files that we all take on business trips), and separated (even if only at your feet) briefcases that can supply expensive items and even more valuable identification files.

• DON’T LEAVE YOUR BAG UNATTENDED. I have done it. I have seen many others do it. We are at the conferences and there’s a break or lunch or restroom need and we leave our bag sitting on the table or chair while we leave even for just a minute. I was right next to my bag and the pro just walked by as I chatted on my cell and walked away with it. Don’t leave it in the reception or expo hall as you walk around either. These pro’s know the routine and are watching.
• DON’T PUT EVERYTHING IN THE BAG. Easy to say, but we all need the laptop and files when we travel. I recommend that you keep them separate. And keep the contact lists with your credit card info (like online accounts and passwords) separate. I had my cell on me and so they didn’t get that and it had much of the info (like account #’s) that I needed to stop the fraud.
• WATCH THE BAG. Don’t let it out of your sight. They are as slick as a pickpocket. This includes in the restroom stalls as they can come by and reach in and be off while you zip up your pants or skirt. Don’t assume there is security in the room. There isn’t and they don’t really watch for strangers. Especially those conferences where ID badges aren’t checked as you enter.
• BE OBSESSED. Trust me, it’s better to be overly concerned, than to have to spend the next couple weeks changing every account and password, changing your passport, changing your frequent flyer accounts (they all have your passwords too), and worrying that someone is going to compromise your identity (that won’t end for quite a while since they know to wait)
• NOTIFY THE CREDIT BUREAU’S IMMEDIATELY—Experian, Equifax and TransUnion will notify each other. Sign up for a credit or ID theft alert program. I signed on to TripleAlert.com, which notifies you if there is suspect activity on your accounts.
• DON’T PUT YOUR ACCOUNT NUMBERS AND PASSWORDS IN YOUR CONTACT LIST. Unfortunately, I had put several and even though I used coded names for the passwords on my bank and credit cards, I suspect the pros would figure it out really fast if they are ID thieves.
• KEEP A SEPARATE THUMB DRIVE WITH ALL THIS INFO AND KEEP IT SEPARATE FROM YOUR BAG. Don’t put your keys or your cell phone in the bag either.
• KEEP A COPY OF YOUR PASSPORT AND DRIVERS LICENSE. Makes it easier to file for stolen or lost with the government.
• DON’T PUT YOUR OUTLOOK CONTACT LIST AND CALENDAR ON YOUR IPOD.
• BACK UP YOUR CONTACT LIST AND CALENDARS REGULARLY. Fortunately, I had backed up about 10 days before the Chicago trip, so my file loss was minimal.
• GET A COPY OF THE POLICE REPORT IF YOU ARE ROBBED. You will need it for your insurance claim and it’s hard to locate after you leave (as I found out).
• FILE AWAY YOUR FREQUENT FLYER AND SELDOM USED CREDIT CARDS. You can do it all without them anyway and if you have a secure place for the numbers that will keep them from getting in the wrong hands.
• KEEP YOUR RECIEPTS OR MANUALS FOR THESE IMPORTANT ITEMS. Fortunately, I had most of them and it facilitated the claim, which I had filled within two weeks.
• FINALLY, LOOK FOR THE SILVER LINING. I am writing this on my new Mac Book, which I love. I use my new I Phone, which replaced my separate I Pod. And my new Nikon has a lot more megapixels than my old Casio.
Still, I would give it all back to not have to go through this again. We all go to meetings and conferences and airports and hotels and leave our stuff out there. Remember, there are pro’s watching for you to look the other way.

Good luck.
Ken

Branding and the Demise of GM

2009-06-02T16:24:00.004-05:00

Press Play>> now for Ken's welcome message for June 2009, or go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZP0LfEsrDI now.

So the impossible finally happened. Not only did Chrysler bite the dust last month, but now General Motors—the symbol of American industry—files for Chapter 11 protection. How could this happen??

Well, the media is full of reasons and the auto execs are full of excuses and the UAW is quick to blame. However, let’s stop blaming the mistakes of the past on what’s happening today. Sure some of the cars they produced in the 70’s and 80’s made you wonder what they were thinking (or not thinking!). But frankly, I believe that many of these companies’ autos stack up quite favorably with all the imports (even if most are made in Tennessee and Ohio). The Malibu’s, the Jeeps, the Sebrings, the Envoy’s are pretty comparable to the Camry’s, Accords, and the Altima’s according to Consumer Reports Auto buying guide. So what’s the problem?

I know I am biased, but I believe it all comes down to the lack of solid branding and marketing by the Big 3 year after year. They have been so entrenched in their thinking and so biased in their execution—especially in media—that most of the buying public really has no preference or relationship (positive, that is) with these companies or their brands anymore. I challenge you to give me what brands like, Cobalt, Legend, G6, Enclave, Traverse, MKZ, or Caliber stand for—or even who makes them.
The car companies have gotten so enthralled with “dealer incentives”, "$ off factory invoice", and “employee pricing” that they forgot that the consumer wants to know why they should consider the car in the first place. I look at how Lexus and Hyundai put themselves on the map and wonder why didn’t the “Big 3” just try to emulate what they were doing? I see some cars on the road with model names that I never heard of until I’m sitting in my dentist’s office and pick up some obscure lifestyle magazine and see a big four-color ad featuring this unknown model.

The re-introduction of the Ford Thunderbird a few years ago was heralded as a marketing success so they did what any other ignorant business leader would do—they stopped marketing it! Not long after, the model was discontinued due to “lack of consumer demand”. Consumers have so many choices; a brand can’t hide and expect the demand to suddenly appear. The companies—and their ad agencies—have been criticized consistently for their lack of creativity and marketing innovation. Yet, they keep doing so much more of the same things; I have to question their motivation.

It’s all about leadership. Lee Iaccoca in his new book, “Where Have All The Leaders Gone?” asks: “Name me an industry leader who is thinking creatively about how we can restore our competitive edge in manufacturing. Who would have believed that there could ever be a time when 'The Big Three' referred to Japanese car companies? How did this happen, and more important, what are we going to do about it?”

So now the government, the unions, and an Italian car company that failed in the US a long time ago are taking over. I hope they do their homework and maybe read what Peter Drucker said a long time ago: “Because the purpose of a business enterprise is to make a profit, a company has two—and only these two—functions—Innovation and Marketing. Innovation and Marketing produce results. All the rest are just expenses.”

It’s time for the car companies to look at what Wal-Mart, Costco, Apple, and
Southwest Airlines have done in marketing to the same customers who would buy their cars. What’s branding got to do with it?? Everything.

IKEA--WHAT AN IDEA!

2009-05-03T20:56:00.007-05:00

press PLAY>>> now for a short video welcome from Ken or click on http://www.youtube.com/my_videos_annotate?v=ATiyT7gsZ1A to view.

Like many other Tampa Bay residents, I was excited to learn a while back that IKEA was opening its first store in the area this month. Unlike most of the others, however, I wasn’t just excited about the exciting merchandise, the great prices, the fantastic displays, the outstanding sales help, or the delicious Swedish meatballs. Rather, as observer of the retail scene, I was glad that I don’t have to go to New Jersey or Cincinnati to take a look at what this retail innovator is doing appeal to its customers. One of my students in my graduate marketing classes at Schiller International University gave me a special invitation to the pre-grand opening preview this past weekend so I could take a look before the crowds started camping out for the early bird grand opening. (Yes, they even have a customer friendly sign outside the front door on camping suggestions and rules.)

Once inside, I realized again why this chain defies the doldrums that face all retailers—and especially furniture stores—these days by posting over a 7% sales increase last fiscal year bring their sales to over 21.2 Billion Euro annually. They have figured out how to not only make shopping fun, but also convenient for their customers. Walking through the over 350,000 square foot store, I couldn’t help repeating the same phrase at every corner: “What a great idea!” (I stopped counting at 30 repetitions) as I would see yet another innovation in merchandising, displays, or signage. To the point, where I said to my family: “They should call this place IDEA instead of IKEA.” It is one great consumer convenience concept after another and the prices just seem to be outstanding as well. Sales help??. Of course, this is a pre-opening, but from the over 50 parking lot attendants to the myriad of smiling, helpful yellow shirts in the store, it sure beat the vulture-like sales people in most furniture outlets these days.

I took the time to ask several associates about how they liked the store. The response was always “This is a great company.” They were as excited as we were with the store—and it wasn’t just because they were just some of the 400 lucky people who were selected to work there out of over 2500 applicants. This is a brand that gets it and has been getting it in Europe for decades and here in the US for just a few years. They have a reason for being (consider today’s shopping patterns for furniture). They compete on value, not just price. (Wal-mart prices with Rooms-to-Go value.) They’re convenient. (I thought the small space rooms were especially timely and easy to shop for today’s downsizing population.) And, finally, they make it fun to shop. Not just the magicians and balloon artists for the grand opening, but the whole experience from the store maps to the kids activities to the wonderful lunch buffet (loved those meatballs), this is a great place to spend a Saturday.

They get it. And if more retailers would take a few hours out of their slumping stores and visit the IKEA near them, they would see that retail can be fun—and profitable.

Shoppers filled the new IKEA even before the Grand Opening--and it was fun.

#10 WAY TO IMPROVE YOUR BUSINESS

2009-04-01T19:26:00.003-05:00

PRESS PLAY>> NOW TO VIEW THE FINAL TIP ON IMPROVING YOUR BUSINESS NOW.

Look for a summary of all 10 Ways to Improve your Business in next month's issue of RETAIL AD WORLD in Ken's regular column The Marketing Edge

Don't forget the Global Retail Marketing Association's annual summit at St. Petersburg Beach's Don CeSar Hotel on April 23-25. Get inspired and in tune with what you need to know to be successful. Go to www.globalretailmarketing.com.

#9 WAY TO IMPROVE YOUR BUSINESS

2009-03-13T17:47:00.004-05:00

Press PLAY>> now for tip #9

Don't forget to attend the Global Retail Marketing Conference in St. Petersburg Beach on April 23-25. Check out the program at www.globalretailmarketing.com.
Great program. Great insights.

#8 WAY TO IMPROVE YOUR BUSINESS

2009-03-13T17:41:00.001-05:00

Press Play>> now to view Tip #8.

www.kenbanks.com

#7 WAY TO IMPROVE YOUR BUSINESS

2009-03-02T09:04:00.003-05:00

allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash">

Press Play>>now to view Ken's #7 Tip

10 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR BUSINESS #6

2009-02-21T15:23:00.002-05:00

PRESS PLAY>> NOW TO VIEW KEN'S #6 TIP

WANT REAL HELP AND INSIGHTS? DON'T FORGET THE RETAIL ADVERTISING CONFERENCE HAS MOVED TO LAS VEGAS ON FEB 25-27...REGISTER NOW AT http://events.nrf.com/rac09//Public/MainHall.aspx?ID=3947

10 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR BUSINESS #5

2009-02-11T19:48:00.002-05:00

PRESS PLAY>> NOW TO VIEW KEN'S #5 TIP

WANT REAL HELP AND INSIGHTS? DON'T FORGET THE RETAIL ADVERTISING CONFERENCE HAS MOVED TO LAS VEGAS ON FEB 25-27...REGISTER NOW AT http://events.nrf.com/rac09//Public/MainHall.aspx?ID=3947

10 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR BUSINESS #4

2009-02-11T19:42:00.003-05:00

PRESS PLAY>> NOW TO VIEW KEN'S #4 TIP

WANT REAL HELP AND INSIGHTS? DON'T FORGET THE RETAIL ADVERTISING CONFERENCE HAS MOVED TO LAS VEGAS ON FEB 25-27...REGISTER NOW AT http://events.nrf.com/rac09//Public/MainHall.aspx?ID=3947

10 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR BUSINESS #3

2009-02-11T19:34:00.004-05:00

press play now >> for Ken's tip.

WANT REAL HELP AND INSIGHTS? DON'T FORGET THE RETAIL ADVERTISING CONFERENCE HAS MOVED TO LAS VEGAS ON FEB 25-27...REGISTER NOW AT http://events.nrf.com/rac09//Public/MainHall.aspx?ID=3947

#2 WAY TO IMPROVE YOUR BUSINESSS

2009-02-11T19:06:00.004-05:00

PRESS PLAY>> NOW TO VIEW KEN'S #2 TIP

WANT REAL HELP AND INSIGHTS? DON'T FORGET THE RETAIL ADVERTISING CONFERENCE HAS MOVED TO LAS VEGAS ON FEB 25-27...REGISTER NOW AT http://events.nrf.com/rac09//Public/MainHall.aspx?ID=3947

10 WAYS TO IMPROVE YOUR BUSINESS #1

2009-02-09T17:19:00.002-05:00

Yes Virginia. There is an Economic Downturn.

2008-12-18T17:49:00.004-05:00

Merry Christmas from Main Street!
Greetings from Orlando where I just returned from a walk down Main Street Disney where the snowflakes falling were real and the stores and sidewalks are all crowded with happy people enjoy a clear brisk night filled with parades, music and laughter. Sounds like I’m on the Hallmark Channel. But it’s true. I kept saying “Recession? What Recession?” Watching the thousands of families who paid full price (no weekend specials or lowest prices of the season here) to visit Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas (not Holiday) Party really put my entire family in the right spirit. The next morning a trip to the Marketplace shops in Lake Buena Vista had the same atmosphere without any admission price. The stores were crowded. The restaurants were bustling and provided specialties of the season. . And generally, there was a really good feeling in the streets.

Back at home, the headlines brought me back to reality with the sales reports showing that the holidays were not likely to save the year for the nation’s retailers. However, there are some who continue with their branding efforts and restraints on the “lowest prices of the day” events that seem to be in every day’s newspapers (which by the way aren’t doing so well either.) Wal-Mart has taken its “Save Money. Live Better.” Campaign to the airwaves more aggressively than I have seen in a few years and the messages are on target, friendly and fun. They have become the #1 voice of retail during this season and have overpowered the overwhelming amount of print from stores like Penney’s and Kohl’s and their sales trend shows it’s working The store experience is vastly improved with strong merchandising and displays highlighting the low prices instead of being hidden by the “50% Off” and 70% Clearance” banners that I see in most department stores.

Best Buy, while recently announcing cuts in labor to offset a severe drop in profits, has also been aggressive on the air with real associates talking about real savings for the customers as well as the excitement of selling the latest and greatest in electronics. The stores are bustling with a lot of people who are avoiding the Circuit City across the street like there’s a plague set in. There is. It’s called Chapter 11. Even ToysRUs has gone back to basics with its messages that assure you that they have the right toy for every kid on our list. Costco doesn’t need to advertise to make shopping an exciting event for their loyal—and I mean loyal—customers who know this is the place for everything from Sony Bravia’s to Sterling Cabernets and they continue to do it well. Sam’s Club once again had the best looking print ad insert in Thanksgiving Day’s paper with dramatic photography, understated prices (the price points were great however), and like Costco they provide a celebration in sales in more customer friendly layouts.

You also have to give Macy’s credit for trying to get back to the thought that Macy’s is Christmas shopping to many of us and has been for many years. Reviving the famous “Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” editorial from many years ago, Macy’s ran a great anthology spot showing how Macy’s has been a part of our lives and show business for decades. The event to get children to write a letter to Santa with their Christmas wishes and thereby making a donation to the Make A Wish foundation was the kind of things that made department stores an important part of our holiday traditions for years. Unfortunately, they no longer have that special-ness that drove their success. Macy’s results have been disappointing, but their effort is truly noteworthy. Even the spot with Martha, Michael, P Diddy et al, didn’t ruin their campaign to make us wish there were more quality marketing programs this time of year.

So before reality sets in, my hope is that the retail world will get back to doing truly breakthrough marketing in the year to come and that our new leadership in the nation’s capital will bring us hope and optimism that’s needed more than ever.
Merry Christmas
Ken

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REGISTER NOW FOR THIS YEAR'S CONFERENCE AT THE
MANDALAY BAY HOTEL, LAS VEGAS, FEB 25-27
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BASEBALL, BRANDING AND THE ECONOMY

2008-10-25T15:57:00.005-05:00

Ken Banks Blog Intro 10-08

Press LInk above now to view the 90 second welcome from "Joe Maddon".

It’s a good thing that the World Series this year is providing a lot of interest for those of us here in the Tampa Bay area (and Philadelphia). It helps offset the sense of depression that one can’t avoid after reading the newspaper or watching the news or financial reports on television every day for the past several weeks. If the news in the financial and banking industry isn’t depressing enough (fueled by the ongoing “doom and gloom” headlines), the diagnosis of the retail industry definitely calls for a bleak holiday sales period this year for sure. With the news of Circuit City’s closing of 140 stores to avoid a bankruptcy which seem inevitable now, liquidation of Linens ‘n Things and Sharper Image, as well as the closing and consolidation of Albertson’s stores around the country, there’s good reason to expect that more retailers will disappear before they can start their after-Christmas sales and clearances.

The headline recently that “Big Discounts Fail to Lure Shoppers” in the Wall Street Journal confirms that it take a lot more than just another sale or lowest prices of the season to convince customers to spend their time and money at stores that just don’t do a good job of creating an ongoing relationship with their customers. Just as we saw that the multi-million dollar payrolls of the Yankees, Tigers, and others failed to get them into playoff contention, stores that feel they can only run more sale ads and more promotions don’t win over many customers in good times much less in a recessionary economy.

Granted we should expect sales across the board to slump, but it’s interesting that on the same day that Circuit City made its bleak announcement, I was in a Best Buy across the street and it was not only crowded, it was buzzing with customers throughout the store and at the registers. Costco doesn’t seem to have much problem with the economy. Even Wal-Mart, while experience less than stellar increases, is still reporting a positive sales trend on top a turnaround trend last fall. Publix food stores have gotten more aggressive with BOGO pricing and expanding its own brands, but it’s loyalty among customers has them spending more than last year on an ongoing basis. Walgreen’s is as aggressive as ever with it’s sales circulars, but it’s aggressive growth continues as it offers programs like flu shots and in-store clinics to keep the customers coming back every week.

What’s the difference? You got it, Joe. It’s branding. These stores continue to strengthen their brands with the customer and with their associates and then market themselves in a way that keeps their relationships strong. The history after the 9/11 tragedy showed that stores with the strongest brands continue to succeed in hard times. The history after the collapse of Bears, Lehman, and AIG will likely be the same. It’s time for some positive news--like the Rays and like the stores who succeed by building their brands every day

BRANDING AMERICA--THAT'S MY VOTE

2008-09-23T21:05:00.002-05:00

Press Play>> to view a 40 second welcome message from Ken at Gore Creek in Vail, CO.

GOD BLESS AMERICA—THE BRAND!

Recently, I attended a conference in New York where Steve Forbes gave one of the keynote presentations. As a publisher, journalist and former presidential candidate, Steve was certainly qualified to give a timely address to over 3000 professional speakers and associates.

I won’t go into the details of his presentation here, but it became very obvious to me that as a country and as a government, the US has done a poor job of branding itself both within our borders and internationally. Some of the facts that Forbes shared about the economy and some of the simplistic ideas that he shared (like a flat tax) seemed so important and so relevant to the problems we are facing in our country (and the world), it’s amazing that I haven’t heard or seen any reference to these key issues from either of our candidates as we get closer to the November elections. In fact, it seems that if you were to ask a typical citizen about what the “brand” (i.e. what differentiates him from the others) of our current candidates, you’d expect to hear that one is “the candidate who happens to be African American” or the other is “the candidate who happens to have been a prisoner of war in Vietnam”. Now, both of these descriptors are important factors but does either of them qualify the person to be President of this country? Not if the brand is defined as the qualities and experience that are the basis for an enduring relationship with your customer (or in this case, the voter.)

So, the analogies of comparing the brand within a company and the brand of our government and country have many similarities. It would do our candidates well to learn a lesson from successful businesses who have dedicated and enthusiastic employees and loyal and supportive customers because they have done a better job of branding than their competitors. First, the President must be the brand champion—leading the country and setting an example of the strong and consistent leadership that brings more consensus within our legislature and develops a positive morale among the people. Brand building is one of the most important forms of leadership in a company and it certainly holds true in leading our nation.

Brand America needs to be consistent with the people and it needs to be communicated to them frequently and honestly. Only by developing trust can our leaders maintain loyalty and support for their programs and policies. Brand America also has to be strong and consistent with our enemies. Just as the strongest brands gain market share from their competition, our country needs to be positioned as a positive alternative to those nations and groups who don’t agree with our policies and way of life. Like a branded product, the way to maintain market share and a preferred position is emphasize our strengths and not try to chase the competition but rather set the example in order to be the preferred choice.

Brand America must also be trusted and respected by our friends and allies. Just as strong brands lead their categories and industries not only among their customers, they also work with their “competitors’ the industry to improve standards and quality through trade organizations and mutual cooperation while maintaining their own identity in the marketplace.

It sounds simplistic, but the principles of branding surely would be a lot more effective than the partisan name calling and accusations that seem to be the only marketing methods that today’s candidates seem to know for their millions of advertising dollars.
Why not build a following by stressing the positives of the candidate and his policies?
Why not build a campaign based on the facts rather than innuendo?
Why not seek changes for the weakness and build our strength from the policy of change—rather than simply promise change for change sake? In other words, why not build—or rebuild—the branding of our country to a well-respected society that fosters positive relationships here and abroad?

Just as it is imperative for an organization to live up to the brand every day in everything for which they are responsible, it is time to set the goal of building the brand of America with its people through strong communication, honest, effective leadership, and consistent, forward-thinking policies.

People want brands they can trust more than ever today. Should we expect anything less from our nation’s leadership?

WHAT’S IN A NAME??
After 10 years of suffering with the worst team in the major leagues, we baseball fans in the Tampa Bay area are enjoying the biggest turnaround in baseball history as the Rays close in on an American East Division Title this week. When the new owners took over a couple years ago they promised a new look and attitude—A NEW BRAND—that started by changing the name from the
Devil Rays (I never even heard of a devil ray around the waters here.) to simply The Rays. Just proof again that if you get the evil connotations out of your brand, you are more likely to be successful. GO RAYS.

CREATING YOUR OWN BRAND PERSONALITY

2008-07-08T11:55:00.002-05:00

Push the play>> arrow to view the short video welcome message from Utah.

Another summer day, another issue of the Wall Street Journal, another dismal headline:
“Vacancies Rise at Retail Centers”.
The ICSC is predicting that 6500 stores will close this year, with vacancies going up to 6.3% for the second quarter. I have to admit that after years of hearing how “over-stored” the country was, perhaps we will lose some of the sameness that has made mall shopping about as exciting as a baseball game these days (even though our Rays are currently in first place!). Frankly, there are a lot of retailers who shouldn’t be around anymore since they provide no real reason for being and--more importantly—no reason for anyone to shop their stores. Just as a forest fire cleans out the woods so that new growth comes back healthier and fuller than before, perhaps our retail scene will cleanse itself of many stores who just take up space in the shopping centers and on downtown streets.

However, despite all the recent depressing news, there are some stores who continue to excel and grow successfully. One chain that continues to break the mold is Coach. I’ve been using them as an excellent example of retail branding at its best for a number of years now, and they continue to differentiate themselves from the other department and specialty retailers in the marketplace. The reason, I believe, is that Coach—with CEO Lew Frankfort leading the way—has maintained its own distinct personality. Let’s face it, there isn’t much news in another leather bag. But Coach somehow keeps its customers—old and new—excited about buying this important accessory even when there is less cash to actually put into the purse or wallet. Having had consistent growth on average of 51% the past five years, Coach has seen its trends slow down to about 11% in net income. A dramatic slowdown, but still impressive when compared to the other stores in our retail world. Despite this, the company continues with aggressive expansion internationally (especially in China) and in its product lines and assortment.

In a time when everyone seems to think that only the discounters are doing well, Coach breaks the mold. Their merchandise is expensive, but they appeal to customers at a number of economic levels with a brand that means quality and prestige, but isn’t out of reach. As Frankfort says, there are many markets, many shopping centers with customers who have never experienced Coach and their goal is to go after these markets with strong branding and new lines that maintain the panache and heritage of the brand.

In short, Coach has maintained its distinctive personality and continues to stress innovation during a time when many stores just try to keep their heads above the waters of recession.

Sure there are others, like Costco, Walmart (yes, Walmart) and Saks who also are maintaining their distinct personality while they continue to grow their brand through effective marketing. I can hear the 50’s singer, Lloyd Price, crooning now the virtues of
“You’ve got Personality—walk, talk, smile with Personality.” It’s all about branding and creating your distinctive place for customers to shop no matter how bad the economy may be.

Making it MY STORE make it MY BRAND

2008-05-24T15:41:00.002-05:00

Press Play >> now to view the 60 second video message from Ken.
Going Local. What a Novel Idea?

So, after facing a 2% overall sales decline last year, Macy’s has decided that all customers are not the same. Gee, I thought the same people shopped Herald Square as those who shop Dadeland in Miami or Fashion Square in Santa Monica??? There’s no doubt that Macy’s was--and is--one of the great Brands in retail. Its history and fame are unlike any other department store chain except it’s sister store Bloomingdales. The move to consolidate all of the department store brands by Federated a few years ago made perfect sense from not only the CFO’s point of view, but also for many customers as well. The efficiencies of marketing one brand nationwide with a singular voice and message promised to bring about some of the best marketing in the industry.

Now, we hear that it isn’t working and that a cookie cutter doesn’t fit on State Street in Chicago the same way as on Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis. Nothing new here. Reminds me of my old dress buying days at Hudson’s many moons ago. We knew back then that the key to success was to adjust our inventories and promotions from one branch to another, knowing that the customers who shopped downtown were a lot different than those who shopped at Northland or Pontiac Mall. In their heyday, the key to the success of the department store was their local personality and community commitment. Shopping at the department store was an experience not just a purchase trip. The promotions were unique to the market and the merchandise suited not just the geography but also the psyche of the local citizens. Sears and Penney’s were there, too, but it was the department store that knew its market, its customers and was a special place to shop.

With all of the consolidations in the past couple decades the disappearance of this “specialness” coincides with the poor performance of department stores compared to the discounters and the big box specialty chains. The overstocked racks of apparel topped by too many 75% off clearance signs and the mandatory Liz or Ralph shops, have, in fact, made these stores boring and no longer part of our lives. The brands have disappeared and so have the sales.

Why this is such a mystery that Terry Lundgren and other category CEO’s are just realizing amazes me. The importance of adjusting to the local market (meaning the individual store’s market area) has been identified for years. Walgreen’s realized this a couple decades ago when they made a commitment to developing the systems necessary to be able to adjust inventories by item and sku to meet the needs of the local (for drug stores that may be less than a mile around the store) marketplace. What sells in a downtown Chicago store may not sell as well at a beach store in Clearwater and vice versa. If you have what most of the customers want, you’ll sell more of it (even at regular prices) more often. Keeping the store and operations staff loyal and consistent is another key to why this chain continues to outperform the category by more than double the sales per store. Sure, they still are aggressive weekly sale advertisers, but it’s the every day sales that make a difference to customers who are in the store a few times a week.

I believe the department stores should take a lesson from our friends from Deerfield and also a lesson from their local predecessors who dominated their markets years ago.
 Make the stores special, make the events special, and I think the customers will return. Special is not having the Trumps, Stewarts, or P Diddy’s as spokespersons either.
 Make the message relevant and timely to the customers in each market.
 Make the store My Store and re-develop the relationships that are necessary for this category to survive.
That’s the key to branding today---just like always.

SPEAKING OF RELATIONSHIPS
Strong customer relationships don’t happen by accident. It takes an effective CRM program and a commitment to reaching your target more effectively. To learn how to do this, don’t forget the annual CRMC conference in Chicago on June 11-13 at the Westin River North Hotel. I have reviewed the program and it looks like one of the best since Fred Newell started this important opportunity 14 years ago.
Just go to www.loyalty.vg to learn more
or go to http://www.loyalty.vg/conferences/CRMC2008/CRMC2008_agenda.aspx to view the program.

مرحبا Wal-Mart! Hello Saks! Hey, Honey Baked Ham!

2008-03-25T09:40:00.009-05:00

Push Play >> now to view the 90 second intro video from Ken

Despite all of the bad economic news over the past few weeks, I refuse to dwell on the poor performers in the retail world in this post. It’s time we look at some companies who are doing things right,living up to their brand, and having positive sales trends as a result!

Photo courtesy Newsweek magazine.
First, Wal-Mart opened a store in a suburb of my native Detroit (Dearborn) that caters to the largest concentration of Arabs outside of the middle-east. An article in Newsweek details how this store has adjusted its merchandise mix, its store associates, and its marketing efforts to target the nearly half a million Arab-Americans in this city. With over 550 items in stock appealing to this target customer,they realize that the brand must be a "store of the community". It’s a good example that even as big as Wal-Mart is, it’s not just low prices that appeals to today’s shopper. Granted, they have the lowest price perception of any retailer in the market, but Wal-Mart has rectified some the mistakes of the past few years and gone back to building trust first and athen selling a lot of items at better prices as a result. Their new marketing campaigns are a throw-back to the real people with real benefits for shopping the store (Better than a blue light hawking weekly specials, I believe.) Their programs tied in with the Salvation Army and Second Harvest Food Banks continue to build trust.

The economic woes haven’t adversely affected sales at Saks Fifth Avenue either and it’s not because its customers have more money than most. Realizing that shoes are a major driver of traffic (Nordstrom figured that out a long time ago.), Saks didn’t just increase inventory, it: introduced its new shoe dept. with its own zip code 10222-SHOE. The flagship store devoted its entire 8th Floor with 150% more inventory. The result was that shoes was the #1 category increase for the holiday selling period. Management credits the increase for the 10.6% increase overall With Deborah Messing helping to open the new zip code, Saks has re-branded itself and has made a commitment to live up to that brand in all categories. See http://ny1.com/ny1/content/index for a ‘news’ report covering the launch.

Finally, many people only think about Honey Baked Ham as a great piece of meat. You might be surprised to learn that they do a heckuva retail business too and sell more than just hams--especially at the holidays with Easter leading the way. I was there using a Christmas (Yes, I always save it for later use.) gift certificate for our Easter ham and was impressed not only with the system and logistics of moving over a hundred people through the line but also with the complimentary sales of side dishes, desserts and condiments. The power of this brand resulted in a line up at 9am on the Saturday before Easter that was not unlike the Starbucks queue for a $4 buck cup at the airport when there is no line for the $1.50/cup of joe right across the aisle. Honey Baked charges almost three times per pound as the Sam’s Club or Costco down the street. Quality product backed by a consistent, believable marketing campaign results in brand loyalty all year round.

So, while some stores blame their negative trends on the poor economy and the real estate rollercoaster and weakening dollar, etc…stores like these continue to build their brands and their sales and we know how.

Greetings from Chicago

2008-02-13T21:58:00.002-05:00

Click play >> to view the 40 second welcome video for this month.

BECOME A BRAND CHAMPION! START HERE ON APRIL 10-12.

I am inspired after being in Chicago for 3 days and am more convinced than ever that successful brands have to work consistently and passionately to make sure their brands come alive within the organization and within the customers – we have to “Make it Stick”.

One of the first critical steps in developing a brand strategy that “sticks’ is to establish a “brand strategy committee” within your organization. It is crucial to have every area represented if it’s going to work – aka “stick”. Pull someone from R&D, HR, Operations, Merchandising as well as the good ‘ol marketing dept, etc.. This committee will require strong leadership and a “brand champion”—to make sure that everyone participates and buys into the strategy and to insure its implementation.

That’s why I am so excited that this spring’s Global Retail Marketing’s Global Retail Marketing Executive Leadership Summit which will be held just down the water from my office in St. Pete Beach. Chief Executive Offer Stephanie Fischer and the GRM team have put together a program that looks at leadership from every perspective and brings to the stage some outstanding experts that will surely enlighten even the most senior marketing executive. To encourage you and your organization to participate, here are some highlights: (OK, yes, I’m a special advisor to GRM, but this program really excites me and I am devoting this article to it!)t

 Start off with Carter Drew who brings his experience at McDonald’s (not a bad brand!) He will share his views on “Authentic Leadership” which will dive into what it takes to develop a vision that’s essential to a strong brand.
 Next, we have all heard about “Blue Ocean Strategy” and Gabor Burt. Gabor, the foremost expert on this hot process, will help any marketer who wants to get a leg up on the competition see how its done in today’s marketplace. His examples will demonstrate how to get the strategy into action.
 The next day will keep the attendees focused on making the strategy work with presentations by experts like Gary Hamel, who Fortune calls the world’s leading expert on business strategy. Gary looks at leadership a being the head of a revolution and we certainly need some revolutionary thinking to get our brands to stand out.
 Following Gary is Peter McLaughlin who will bring this whole idea to heart by talking about how we can ignite the energy of our marketing internally and make us better champions of our brand. It’s not all strategy as you know and the bottom line is always a prevailing consideration.
 That’s why Joel Makower will show how the new “greening of our business and marketing” can be profitable if you do it right. Nobody can talk about the right way to make “Green” exciting and profitable for a brand like Joel, He has written more than a dozen books and several articles that make a difference to who?.

 Finally, I am glad to see Dan Burrus is bringing his futuristic, yet common sense, approach to technology trends back to this summit. Last year, I was truly inspired by his ideas and concepts that got everyone involved and excited about the future—if you do it right and look at the marketplace. Even after seeing Dan again at the NSA Convention in July, I am amazed at his wealth of knowledge and ability to cut through the confusion in technology to inspire us to think differently about our brands and our customers.

Top all this off with ample opportunities to network with our marketing counterparts from other retailers and key marketers from some of best partner companies out there, it will be an extraordinary event. GRM has a long history of bring people together to share ideas and build new relationships that pay off back at the office and this year looks like it will be even better.

The setting ain’t so bad either with the beautiful and historic Don CeSar Hotel providing the meeting location and amenities. Golf and boat cruises in the Gulf are a great way to enjoy the time away while you stimulate your thinking and become a true brand champion for your company.

I know this sounds like a sales pitch—and it is. I believe so strongly in the need for strategy leadership in in order to bring brands to life. I am convinced that this is a great opportunity that warrants your time and effort to attend. On top of that, if you’re a retail marketing executive, there’s no charge for the summit. Just take the time to get on a plane (or boat in my case) to Tampa Bay then spend some of the best 3 days in your branding quest. It’s April 10 thru April 12, and spend the weekend if you can. I guarantee it will be sunny and warm!

Just click on the link to the right, or go to www.globalretailmarketing.com. See you there.
Ken

News From New York

2008-01-16T14:35:00.000-05:00

Click play >> to view this month's video welcome(47 seconds) from NYC
The annual NRF convention at the Javitz Center was abuzz with new technology that will make running a retail organization more efficient with state-of-the-art systems and programs. The exhibits floor was full of representatives and retailers and as many high tech sounding names. Hopefully, these innovations will save the companies enough money to offset the loss of revenue most stores experienced in the past couple months of holiday sales.. With a lousy December (-0.4%) and an overall disappointing two-month holiday period (3% vs. a prediction of +4%), there were many reasons given for the poor performance in the trade articles that followed today’s release of December figures. The old stand-by “bad weather” and over-used “tentative consumer” were cited most often. Nobody, however, said that their marketing efforts were off the mark.

I won’t dwell on that again in fear of sounding redundant from last month’s article. However, it was interesting that most of the program at this year’s convention failed to address the key issues of marketing and branding. About the only sign of the “B-Word” was on one of the displays at the NRF bookstore where 4-5 books promised the key to better branding. (Unfortunately, my book isn’t quite finished in time to hit the shelves!) In talking with several of my retail counterparts at the convention, we all were in agreement that this year’s holiday marketing efforts were about as exciting as the 30 re-runs of the clay-mation version of “Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer”. It just seemed that those who did advertise had nothing to say other than another “lowest prices” sale in ads that looked so similar; one had to yawn whenever we opened the daily newspaper (those of us who still get the paper, that is.),

Looking for answers, maybe these disappointed retailers should have been sitting in church with me when our pastor used a quote that seemed to “hit the nail on the head” -
“The bitterness of poor quality lingers on long after the sweetness of a cheap price fades away.” Sure, we all have to have a great price image to survive in today’s marketplace. However, whatever happened to giving customers a really great shopping experience (especially at the holidays)? With lousy service, jam-packed clearance round racks, and with advertising that seemed dull and redundant, retailers have lost the value part of the proposition. It’s interesting to look at the December comp’s, that the ones with the worst performance were also the ones with the dullest advertising and store presentation. I won’t list them here, but the December results are available online so you’ll know who I mean.

It’s interesting that Wal-Mart broke with some really good ads that communicated their value statement while at the same time they broke with blockbuster pricing. The turnaround in sales also reflected a much better shopping experience in the remodeled stores that I visited. Costco’s results continue to be amazing in view of their lack of any advertising. The store experience says it all. Flat screen TV’s were the hot items and these stores had displays that rivaled the big electronics stores and were a lot less confusing to shop.

Macy’s announced that while it now had its logo on hundreds of stores in every market (which produce lousy sales), they were expanding their San Francisco web offices due to increases in their online business. The amount of gift card sales only punctuates our customers’ lack of enthusiasm to shop for actual gifts and other traditional holiday items.

The time to start building Holiday 2008 sales is now. Stores need to take a look at their marketing efforts and research their brand position and start NOW to provide a reason for customers to shop them now and on an ongoing basis. It’s the only way to build a better business all year.

RAC CHICAGO---A GOOD PLACE TO START.
To get inspired and re-energize your branding efforts, start out by attending this year’s Retail Advertising Conference in Chicago on February 6-8. The program promises to be one of the best in helping you make your marketing message “stick” with your customers. Click this link to get all the information about this year’s program and registration.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year--all year long!

2007-12-22T11:06:00.000-05:00

Left..Visit to the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree
I was just listening to some old Christmas carols when I heard a song by Bing Crosby (that shows how long ago I recorded these songs!) called "It's not the things you do at Christmas time, it's the Christmas things you do all year long!" I had just seen a business news report that retailers were again struggling with their holiday (politically correct of course) sales this year. How appropriate are old Bing's lyrics for those retailers who hold up doing any signficant marketing and branding all year and then shoot their marketing wad in December expecting the customer to select their store over the others with the same items and much the same prices. I always used to tell our fragrance buyers that they should build a preference all year as the right store for that purchase and then they wouldn't have to scramble and overspend from Thanksgiving on tryingto get that last minute gift sale. Branding is not just a blitz campaign. It takes time and it take meaningful messages (no, a preprint a day does not keep the sales slump away). The customers are all as busy as I am at this time of year and they are going to go to the stores that they prefer in March and July first to get their Christmas shopping done because they don't have time to stroll the mall anymore. I just heard that Macy's was going to be open 24 hours this weekend. Hooray. I always wanted to go to Herald Square at 3am to get my wife's gift!
Wishing you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year all through 2008.

Ken

BLACK FRIDAY. CYBER MONDAY. BRANDING TUESDAY…?

2007-12-01T19:02:00.000-05:00

Click on PLAY arrow to view this month' 90 second video welcome.

So, another Thanksgiving weekend has come and gone (quickly I might add). I remember my department store days when working the day after was as challenging as my first day of Army basic training…only a lot more exciting. Now that Black Friday has become such a media event, it’s hard t believe that anyone wants to shop that day—especially at 4am or 5am. I was surprised to see that there were people camped out in front of my local Best Buy on WEDNESDAY afternoon just to be first in line for the bargains two days later. So much for a nice family holiday on Thanksgiving Day! The advertising in general over the weekend was non-descript. The two department store competitors (successful ones, that is) Kohl’s and JCPenney literally bombarded the media with more preprint pages and spots than I can remember. More surprising was how identical their print ads were. Almost like they knew what the other was going to do not only the vehicles and style, but also the merchandise and prices. It reminded me of Doner CEO Alan Kalter’s description of the disease plaguing today’s retailers—“emulitis”. Of course, he said this over a decade ago but the copycat strategy is alive and well. Overall, there were more bargain shoppers this past weekend, but they spent less thanks to the continuing decline in prices on flat screen TV’s, mp3 players, and laptops. It will be difficult indeed to achieve even the predicted 2% growth for the holiday selling season.

Now, we are infatuated by Cyber Monday. So all of us who have something better to do than stand in line on Friday (or Wednesday night) can wait and get bargains online by just loggin in on Monday morning. And it seems to work there as well, with significant increases even with retailers who are in a slump (like Circuit City and Sears). The growth on line continues to amaze analysts. Yet, it should be no surprise given the over 80% of consumers who go online prior to visiting a store to make a purchase these days. The integration of the store and online marketing efforts is more critical today than ever. By the way, I “elfed” myself on Office Max’s site (http://elfyourself.com/) and it was as much fun as watching Bob Thacker’s examples of last year’s big success stories. The whole extended family is now dancing in their green costumes this year online.

Now it’s back to reality. With all the effort and spending toward getting the bargain hunters this weekend so we can clear inventory and reduce our margins, isn’t it time for stores to devote a day to making sure that there brand is alive and well…or at least existing? With the exception of Zale’s and Kay Jewelers, I have not seen much effort to do great advertising and give customers a reason to choose your store for any reason other than super values and 75% discounts. What happened to giving the customer a reason to be loyal and have a preference for your store so that you don’t have to wait for the next big sale to give a reason to shop. The print ads that I received from Sam’s Club were the closest thing to holiday advertising that makes you want to visit the store for the merchandise and not just the discount. Great photography, great design and great prices make the store look better than any conventional department store advertising that I reviewed.

In broadcast, it’s pretty much the same. Seldom is there a brand message that positions the retailers as a preferred choice for the holidays. Sure, with the economy, price is as important as ever. But with the amount of competition and the growing lack of shopping time or interest, wouldn’t one want to be the preferred store going in to the weekend and make holiday shopping a special occasion like it once was. I was in Saks a couple days after the Thanksgiving holiday and it seemed like it was no more exciting than a random weekend in July. We blame it on the Internet, or the economy, but we ought to look into the mirror and pick a day to promote our brand to our customers and to our employees so that there is a reason beyond price to come to our stores all year round.

By the way, don't forget to sign in above to insure that you receive each month's articles.

It's Always Someone Else's Fault

2007-10-25T15:41:00.000-05:00

Press Play >> now for a 45 second video message from Ken.

It seems like it’s the same old story when the monthly retail sales reports come out. The chains that have been doing well (like the new Kohl’s that I just visited) continue to maintain their comp sales growth and the others (like most department stores) can’t figure out what’s happening in the marketplace.

A couple of reports this month pointed out what’s wrong with these stores. It’s the brand, stupid! An article in the New York Times talked about Macy’s strategy backfiring and that the new consolidated brand had forgotten about what made May Co. and Marshall Field’s so successful. It went on to say that the reason customers weren’t going to the stores as much was because there weren’t enough “deals” (as in coupons and promotions) and therefore the customers were opting for other chains (like Kohl’s and Target). CEO Terry Lundgren stated that Macy’s moved “too far, too fast” from the promotions and basic merchandise (like Dockers) that the previous chains built their volume on and that they would have to “backtrack” to get some of those customers back. I don’t think that’s the problem and those customers that only shopped because of a coupon only accelerated the downfall of the previous department stores. Wouldn’t it be much better to give people a reason to shop at your stores other than the “stars” (like Martha Stewart and P Diddy?) have stuff there to sell? The new campaign for the “global Macy’s brand” really fell short in creating any reason to shop there or to expect a better experience than the specialty and discount chains have been offering. Department stores, when they were the heart of retailing, made shopping an exciting experience or at the very least a place for special purchases. As they have expanded and consolidated, there simply is nothing special about the stores. And a discount coupon or loads of 50% off Dockers or Liz Claiborne isn’t really special, particularly when they are always on sale. Who shops for regular price at a department store anyway? I happen to agree with the consolidation of all the former store names under the Macy’s logo. It is a legendary brand with a lot going for it. But all of these stores aren’t on Herald Square and the experience is nothing special. What Macy’s needs to figure out is what the brand should be so that it can have a special relationship (aka a brand) with its new and future customers. Until they define the brand better, all the coupons in the world won’t reverse the downward trend and the disgruntled customers of the former stores.

Another report came out that after 20 years, the Bombay Company’s new owners were abandoning the US and were just going to operate the Canadian stores. I knew the dollar in Canada had grown in value, but not that much! The articles generally stated that Bombay’s demise was due to its (and many other smaller stores’) failure to compete with the big box and larger specialty chains. That may be true but it’s not all a matter of size that matters. For the 20 years, I could never really figure out what Bombay’s reason for being (a key element to a successful brand) was and why anyone would shop there. Sure the stores were neat and the merchandise was nice, but why should I go there? They never developed a brand that was based on the customer and the result was that the chain was always “just there”. Maybe they will do better in Canada, but I am surprised that they lasted as long as they did. There are plenty of smaller sized chains (like Coach, Christopher and Banks, Hollister) that do very well because they have a great brand strategy and they execute it very well in the store, everyday.

Without a great brand strategy, a retailer can blame poor performance on a lot of other reasons (like the weather) but what they really need to do is take a good look inside and find out what they really stand for with the customer and then communicate that more effectively.

"Brand" New Retail Campaigns

2007-09-23T14:16:00.001-05:00

Press the PLAY arrow to view a 60 second welcome video.
The past several months have been pretty much a wasteland for new creative on the retail advertising front. Not that there haven’t been new spots and new ads on the scene, but nothing has stood out as break-through creative or really spot-on branding.

Recently, however a few campaigns have broken that have caught my attention and, I think, the attention of the consumer as well. Additionally, I think these are examples of campaigns that reinforce the stated brand strategies for these stores. Let’s take a look at three of them.

1. Stein Mart. Always a great off-price alternative to the traditional department stores, Stein-Mart has never really differentiated itself with a strong brand message. As a matter of fact, their advertising, in my opinion, has been a non-entity. Great brand strategy but they kept it a secret. The new campaign, however, from Devito-Verdi, really breaks through with a tongue-n-cheek slam on the main floor piano players that so many department stores think are important.

With the pianist (kind of a Will Farrell look-alike) slamming the competition and their policies that ignore what the customer wants, the spots drive home a positioning that makes a lot of sense to today’s smart shoppers. Stein Mart’s business has not kept up with its former pace in recent months. Maybe now that they are taking their brand proposition to the consumer, more will visit the stores. Check out all the spots at their site at:
http://steinmart.com/

2. Kohl’s. The store has been a real success story and their latest campaign featuring their Vera Wang collections is not just another “we’ve hooked up with a designer” series. The spots are creative, contemporary and drive home the personality of Vera and Kohl’s at the same time. Another example of how these specialty stores have taken a position that has made them favorites with customers in all demographic and psychographic groups with the money and the smarts to know they don’t have to spend too much for good style and quality. The spots from McCann are not just fashion and they certainly are a lot more effective than the new Macy’s spots.

3. Wal-Mart. After more than a year of fumbling around with more problems than just some new creative, the world’s largest store broke its first spots since naming the Martin Agency its new AOR a few months ago. It’s interesting that most of the news around the agency change and the new campaigns focused on the fact that it was time to replace the long-standing smiling happy face “Price roll back” spots. From what is written, one would think this is has been Wal-Mart’s only advertising message for years. In fact, the smiley-face campaign was never the majority of the spots that have run for the store. Spots featuring employees, customers, suppliers, charities, and events were extremely well-done and which built the trust of the customer were one of the big reasons that the company has grown to be the most successful retailer in the world.

The new campaign gets back to building that trust while still driving home the fact that Wal-Mart saves you money for the things in your life that you like to do. They are well-produced and targeted and I think it’s time for the company to focus its messages on building the trust and quality of the company while saving its customers money. (”Save Money. Live Better”) I’m not sure what they changed with the media plan, but I used to be hit by at least 4-5 messages a week (and I’m not a high television watcher) and now I have only seen these spots in advertising trade publications and video links. Maybe that’s why the performance has been so poor the past several months. You can check it out in Bob Garfield’s column at www.adage.com.

I’ve said many times that retailers tend to think that branding is nothing more than coming up with a new ad campaign and then wonder why nothing happens with the consumer. In these cases, the positioning is right, the stores get it, and the message is creatively succinct.

CUSTOMER SERVICE = BRANDING!

2007-08-23T16:08:00.000-05:00

PUSH PLAY TO VIEW THE SHORT WELCOME VIDEO FROM ALASKA

There isn’t a company in the world today that doesn’t emphasize the importance of customer service. Their annual reports always focus on their commitment (and the commitment of their outstanding associates) to meeting the needs of their customers. Their mission statements, while generally hard to understand, somehow insures that customer service (usually in some other ubiquitous terms) is an important part of the company’s vision.

This week, the New York Stock Exchange released its third annual survey of CEO’s from around the world. It wasn’t surprising that these company leaders believe that meeting and exceeding customer expectations is the key to driving sustainable growth in the future. The survey, as reported in USA Today, said that with so much product (and store) parity it was customer service that could be the key differentiator in the marketplace. Sounds like branding to me! The CEO’s also said that they would budget more dollars for customer relationship management in 2008 to reflect that they are serious about serving the customer. This made me wonder if they were as committed to building and strengthening their brands at the same time. If providing great customer service is exceeding customer expectations at the store, and if branding’s job is defining those expectations, then, why do so many companies feel that customer service and branding are two separate functions? Why do HR and Operations determine the service standards and how to implement them while Marketing is charged with developing a brand strategy that will communicate to the customer what to expect when they come to the store? In fact, everyone should work together to insure that the service standards and the brand promises are in synch with each other.

We see so many fast food retailers put a sign up on their marquees or in their windows saying “Now Hiring, Smiling Faces”. Sure we all would rather a smiling face on the other side of the counter or drive-thru window, but what we really want is someone who will get our order right, get it to us fast, and all the time speak a language we can understand. Efficiency is a lot more important in this industry than a gleeful employee (to the customer that is), Looking at last month’s retail sales results, I noted that the stores that did well in an otherwise slow month, were those who are doing a great job with their brands and exceeding customer expectations at the same time.
Stores like Costco (+7.0% comps), Target (+6.1), JCPenney (+11.0) and Nordstrom (+9.4) all have great brands, and they all provide different levels of customer service. But these levels are consistent to what they are promising to their customers via their brand strategy. Costco provides a different level of service than Whole Foods even though they are in similar businesses. Nordstrom promises more service when they sell a pair of shoes than does Payless. JCPenney has gone very promotional, yet still offers a better experience than most department stores out there.

It’s proof once again that when the brand strategy is developed, all of the departments must agree to it and make sure that they live up to it. “Customer Relationship Management” is popular today and a lot of money is being spent to keep existing customers and geting them to spend more. Don’t make it harder than it is. Branding is about the relationship with the customer and it starts with providing customer service that consistently meets or exceeds our marketing promises

From San Diego with Soul and Substance

2007-07-16T16:15:00.000-05:00

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Press Play Arrow to view 60 second video introduction.
Back when I was SVP-Marketing and Branding at PetSmart, one of the keys to our strategy was identifying the “Truth and The Heart” of the brand. Our agency, Publicis USA, had developed “Truth and The Heart” and maintained—and I agreed—that you first develop the “Truth” or the hard facts of what the brand was (things like number of stores, categories, prices, displays, programs, etc) in order to define your points of differentiation. Once these facts were established, then it was critical to identify and develop “The Heart” of the brand—those emotional reasons for shopping the store, whether it was caring associates, programs like pet adoptions, easy refunds, personal communications, professional vets or trainers, in order to build a true relationship with our customer. And if you have no relationship with them, then you really don’t have a brand that will succeed.

This all came back to me while attending the National Speakers Association Annual Convention in San Diego this week. Speaker after speaker zeroed in on this past year’s theme by emphasizing that to be an effective communicator who has an impact on his/her audience, you had to have differentiating substance to what your topics, your target audience, and your calls to action would be; what is it that separates you from the thousands of others on the platforms at the many meetings and conferences held each year? To that end, I have focused my presentations this year specifically on the importance of getting people on the floor and throughout the organization to live up to the brand in everything they do on the job. Unless we achieve totalbrandintegration® in making sure our culture reflects the brand strategy we are communicating to our customers, there is little chance for long-term success.

The most important ingredient for this brand culture is to develop a “soul” in our people that truly makes this a way of life as they service our customers. For years, Southwest Airlines has been known not only as the country’s most successful airline but as the airline whose people personify its brand. As their COO said not long ago, “We are a company in the customer service business who happens to fly airplanes.” No question where Herb Kelleher put the soul and substance in his company.

While I was in Juneau, Alaska, a couple weeks ago, we decided to take the city bus out to Mendenhall Glacier for the day. As I waited, a young man named William spotted that I was wearing a Cox Broadcasting fleece vest and struck up a conversation. He was thinking that I might have an opportunity for him in television. I quickly clarified that it was a free-bee, but he was really interested in marketing and the future of big companies in the US. While he was a musician, he asked some relevant questions about my thoughts on whether all of the consolidations, buyouts, and venture capital takeovers would reduce the competitive market so much that there would be no innovation and no excitement in consumer marketing. Thinking about it, I assured him that there was still plenty of competition and plenty of good marketing—if we maintain branding as the soul and substance of our stores, products, or services. Having recently worked for some venture capital investors, I was made aware of the importance of cash flow and making the sales numbers. I’m afraid sometimes we forget that it is the “soul” of the business and the way our people relate to the customer that really makes the difference. William asked the right questions, and as I watched the glacier “calve” in many pieces, I thought how many chains are also falling apart because they miss the two most important ingredients that make a lasting contract with their customers.

IT’S A RELATIONSHIP, NOT A QUICKIE.

2007-06-13T15:10:00.001-05:00

Last week, I spoke to a Brand Management class of MBA students at the University of South Florida where we had a lively discussion about how long it takes for branding to work. I had stated in my presentation that many companies, especially retailers, fail to establish their brands because they are looking for immediate results (sales) as soon as they start their marketing efforts behind the brand strategy. So often what happens is that the company or store will spend months with consultants and/or agencies. developing a strategy within the organization Then they will budget an aggressive amount of advertising and marketing funds to launch the new strategy, much of which is upfront to “really hit the ground running”. After a couple months or so, they are quick to pull the plug—or at least go into hibernation marketing-wise—because they are not seeing an immediate return on their advertising investment.

This sort of reminds me of the 15-minute dating services that you may have seen on some of the news magazine programs recently. You know, this is where about 15 single guys and 15 single ladies sign up for a night of a dating blitz where they each get 15 minutes at a table together, then the bell goes off and they all scatter (like musical chairs participants) to another table and another Mr. or Ms. Right and start all over again. They do this all night and then hope that they get a subsequent, more quality, date with the one they liked best. One thing is for sure, these are not relationship workshops. “Whiz bam, thank you Ma’am” is more like it. Retailers today think about marketing and branding in the same way. Build a multi-media campaign, blitz the airways over a few weeks and then watch the customers pour in with their cash to make a purchase and, of course, become loyal shoppers who want to sign up immediately for your CRM card and carefully thought-out e-mailings targeted for their need and likes.

Well, as I told the students that night, it just doesn’t work that way. Branding is building a meaningful relationship with your customers and potential customers. And it just doesn’t happen in a couple 30-second or 16-page by-chance encounters. It takes time and it takes consistency for the relationship to develop. It also takes internal development (kind of like getting the right clothes or make-up for that dating session) to ensure that the organization understands what kind of relationship you expect them to have with the customer. Some of the most successful brands have kept the same brand strategy, with revisions to keep up with the times and changing competition, for many years to insure a loyal customer base and relationship. Sure the communications have to be freshened up with new messages and new creative, but the strategy (if sound) must be nurtured in all aspects of the business if you want to keep a positive relationship with the customer.

Daniel Burrus, CEO of Burrus Research, spoke recently at the Global Retail Marketing Summit in St. Petersburg, FL about the importance of building a relationship. In fact, he said, “The future is all about Relationships.” The key he said was to enhance TRUST with your customers if you are going to succeed. We have to “de-commoditize” continuously if we are going to stay ahead of the competition by constantly exceeding customer expectations. The importance of keeping at it everlastingly (as N.W. Ayer once said) will strengthen our brands and keep the entire organization on track.

As I get ready to go to Alaska for two weeks of relationship building with my wife, Sandi (and to celebrate our 40th Anniversary), I am more convinced than ever that to build a brand or a relationship, one must be committed to it, have a passion for it, and work hard at it…everyday.

Interview on Media Talk WebCast.

2007-05-22T16:23:00.001-05:00

Click below to view my interview on Media Talk last week.

THE WAY YOU’VE DONE THE THINGS YOU DO.

2007-05-02T12:08:00.000-05:00

PLAY THIS 30 SECOND VIDEO NOW.
John Costello is one of the top marketers in the U.S. and has made his mark at Home Deport, Sears, and Yahoo and is now President—Consumer & Retailer at Pay By Touch. The new company uses technology to use fingerprints, among other things, to identify customer shopping behaviors and preferences. Well, John certainly left his fingerprint on the recent Global Retail Marketing Association’s inaugural Summit at St. Petersburg Beach. A common thread throughout the excellent presentations at this meeting was the skyrocketing growth of technology, especially mobile media (cell phones), for retailers and service providers in today’s marketing programs.

One of the points John made, however, really resonated with me and my passion to get everyone in the organization involved with the brand strategy. He recommended that today’s successful marketing organizations should be organized by objective rather than by function as has been the norm for years. Instead of having VP’s of Advertising, Marketing, Branding, Creative, etc., the marketing organization leaders should be determined by the Who (most important customer segments), the What (differentiates the brand vs. competition), and the How (integrated marketing and advertising). To accomplish this, the former VP’s would now take on the rolls such as VP-Customer Intelligence and Insights (Who), VP-Brand and Product Marketing (What) and VP-Integrated Marketing Communications (How).

I think it’s about time that this type of thinking becomes the norm in our organizations where the brand should drive not just the marketing functions, but the entire organization. The operations need to be clued in to the brand strategy and organized so that the place where the customer gets his/her brand impression (the store) is consistent to the message. Human Resources needs to be set in finding people who will live up to the brand - whether it’s at the store or behind the scenes, IT needs to provide the technology and systems to stay up with the brand strategy and a technology savvy customer and employee base. The CEO has to become the Brand Champion who sets the pace, ensuring that the message is integrated into all decisions going forward. In short, it’s everyone’s job and it should be organized around the brand not around a chart of functions.

Until we get over the silos that currently hinder the effectiveness of today’s organizations and truly understand that the brand is the DNA that makes up the store, product or service’s reason for being, I’m afraid branding will continue to be simply a marketing function—for those who want to see their market share dwindle in the future.

For more information about the GRMA Summit, go to www.globalretailmarketing.com . Kudo’s to Sonny Nardulli and Stephanie Fischer on bringing a great forum for progressive thinkers to the retail industry.

YOU CAN’T CUT YOUR WAY TO SUCCESS.

2007-04-04T16:24:00.000-05:00

View the 40 second video first.
Last week, my former employer, Circuit City, announced a new wave of cost cutting efforts where by 3,400 employees would be fired and replaced by lower-paid workers in order to become more competitive with other electronics retailers. However, being competitive doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to have the lowest cost efficiencies and lower sale prices,. To me, this is just another step in becoming less of a factor in their category and a guarantee that the market share will continue to erode.

Back in the mid-90’s, Circuit City was the number one choice by American consumers for their electronics and appliance purchases. At that time, we conducted over 3000 interviews with consumers and determined that, in fact, most of them preferred the CC format in providing knowledgeable salespeople and helpful service while maintaining competitive pricing. Just a couple years ago, while working in that category again on the agency side, I consistently read a lot of research indicating that customers, especially females (who now have a say in over 80% of electronics purchases), still had a lot of questions when it came to making technology purchases and would appreciate someone more than a cashier when deciding on what to buy.

The discontinuance of commission salespeople accelerated CC’s move toward self-service and the latest move should put them right there with Wal-Mart who doesn’t promise to be anything more than a low price source. I can’t help but think of The Container Store where they have not only one of the most loyal employee groups, but also one of the highest paid. Consistently rated one of the best places to work in the country, The Container Store has made selling basic “stuff” exciting and it all happens at the store level. I recall hearing the companies’ founders, Kip Tindell and Garrett Boone, say that the key was keeping and paying the best employees. They insisted that a great employee could do more work than three so-so employees and they could pay them twice as much and still be cost effective.

Branding is much more than just a low price. It starts with a great strategy and then having people in the store (who are the brand to the customer) who are motivated and excited about the store and the merchandise they sell. With this latest move, I’m sure that the quality of service at a store that used to promote it was “where service is state of the art” will become not only non-existent, but also a detriment to future share growth. No wonder more electronics buyers (note I did not say “shoppers”) are going on-line or to the warehouse stores to get what they want.

It forecasts a continuance of Circuit City’s lagging sales and diminished market share trends, and I don’t think even having Jim Nantz (who, by the way, did the play by play of the Florida Gators’ championship win) in their commercials will motivate the customers to come back or the employees to do a great job.

Now Boarding…Your Brand.

2007-01-29T16:44:00.000-05:00

As the New Year quickly gets moving and Wal-Mart reorganizes its marketing, (No, I am not going to talk about the changes that every advertising and retail publication has covered in every little detail>), it’s time to look for some new ideas in strengthening our brands.

With the Super Bowl finally drawing near, I was thinking about how all the bowl games are now branded and the stadiums also sport commercial names. It’s ironic that the "big game" is going to be played in Dolphin Stadium, formerly known as ProPlayer Stadium, former known as Joe Robbie Stadium. For building awareness, paying several million dollars to put your name on the stadium is not a bad idea. Well, unless, you were the Astros who played in Enron Stadium. The team got better. The stadium changed names for obvious reasons.

Anyway, I was intrigued last summer while waiting to arrive at our gate at London’s Heathrow airport. All the jet ways were labeled HSBC. I’m sure some travelers thought this stood for Heathrow’s Super Baggage Corridors rather than one of the world’s largest banks, which must need more awareness around the world. However, as I sat there I was curious about the idea of using these usually bland jet ways as a branding device and thought that this is really good real estate to build awareness and recognition for international travelers and business people. (By the way, the letters stand for the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation in case you were wondering.) All I knew about them is that they handle the finance offers for a lot of retailers, like Levitz, so that you don’t have to pay for that sofa until 2010.

Shortly thereafter, I was flying into JFK airport in New York and low and behold their jet ways were HSBC sponsored as well. As a matter of fact, it seemed like I was now seeing HSBC wherever I looked in the city. A growing company using innovative ways to gain higher brand recognition. I started thinking, wouldn’t it make sense for Macy’s to have their names on all the jet ways at LaGuardia or Newark? What about American Tourister or TravelPro luggage at other airports, or maybe they could sponsor the baggage wagons that come out to unload the planes. Speaking of planes, we’ve seen the Shamu version of some Southwest Airlines planes sponsored by Sea Worlkd; why not have each plan sponsored (much like the busses in some metro areas)? We could fly in the Target plane to Minneapolis, or the Home Depot 737 to Atlanta. Maybe a Neiman Marcus jet to Dallas. I know that Frontier Airlines was going to sponsor their airsick bags and plastic ware. So many branding opportunities...

I was always impressed by the Target logo in the end zones right between the goal posts at NFL stadiums. I thought the Sports Authority logos at courtside and rink side at many venues made good sense. Branding isn’t just another great ad or commercial, it’s using available venues to further enhance not just awareness, but also the personality of the brand. So many retailers are stuck on running weekly circulars, price and item TV spots, and a “vigorous” website. Circuit City ran an ad this week for it’s Firedog computer services. It was great because it promoted the fact that the company was giving a donation to America’s firefighters to support their important role in the communities. Enhanced the brand and said we are more than just the next big deal on an HD big screen TV.
Building a relationship with your customers is what branding is all about. It’s not just another ad in the paper or name on the jetway.

By the way, learn branding ideas from 18 experts, including yours truly, in the valuable book, Marketing Magic. Cover price is $19.99, but it's only $10 if you order it online through my website at www.kenbanks.com.

The Good News and The Bad News…From Bentonville

2006-12-19T10:31:00.000-05:00

The Good News and The Bad News…From Bentonville

It’s the holiday selling season and there’s a lot of news in retail, especially from the center of the retail world in Arkansas. While there are many other stores to talk about, let’s take a look at two stories worth considering.

First the good news. Thanksgiving has come and gone and by now the 40 pounds of newsprint that landed in my driveway has made its way to the recycle bin. Of all the ads and inserts in my paper, I couldn’t help but read one from cover to cover. It had the best photography, the right gift items, and probably the best prices. No it wasn’t Target (as good as their ads always are). Penney’s spent a lot, but looked like everyone else. Nordstrom, Macy’s and Dillards looked like—well, like department stores. The best of the batch, in my opinion, was a slick-looking 16-page standard insert from none other than Sam’s Club. Great photography, heavy, quality stock, terrific items, subtle prices with not so subtle savings. Made me want to read every bit of copy and check every price. While you could argue was this vehicle incongruous with a warehouse club store, you couldn’t argue with the creativity and the savings. Of course, Costco, as always, didn’t run any advertising, but Sam’s set the pace with this circular and I suspect resulted in far better performance than their parent discount chain.

Which brings me to the bad news (unless you’re Target or Kmart). First, as a consumer, I didn’t feel the presence of Wal-Mart at all during the Thanksgiving week. I saw more of the spots from the union trying to break down the conditions of working for the world’s largest retailer than I did from the store. Usually, a dominant player, I didn’t even see a Wal-Mart preprint and the television was transparent. Maybe the new marketing gurus from Chrysler and Frito-Lay had them running ads in Real Simple or Field and Stream magazinea. The lack of any presence by the largest retailer makes you wonder what’s happening in Bentonville. Obviously, from the sales results, consumers felt the same way.

To me it’s another example of this store trying to act like a packaged goods or automotive marketer and forgetting the sense of urgency that retail demands. The fact that they took their eye off the ball to conduct an 8-month agency review (who needed that anyway??), then selected one that really has no retail experience, then fired the key marketing exec from Chrysler and her assistant and then unbelievably started the agency review all over again. Something stinks here. Now they are going to waste another 8 months and countless marketing energy by renewing the search (oh, to be an agency search consultant!) I went into a Wal-Mart this weekend and I think they were as well merchandised as ever. The big difference was that there were no lines at the registers and that really worries me. How blind can they be to their problems? The great brand is in jeopardy.

We will have to see how the Holidays finish for sales, but I hope the news at your company and home is all good . Happy Holidays...

The Middle Name is Cash

2006-11-07T17:53:00.000-05:00

Those who have been reading these articles for the past 14 months know that I have been anything but sympathetic to the trials and downward trends in the department store category. As we get ready for another Holiday Selling Season where Wal-Mart has already taken off the price gloves, (why do they have to make those announcements to tip off the competition anyway?) it’s obvious that branding will once again take a back seat to promotion. Of course, this will show that these retailers really mean business to get their sales trends back on track. On the other hand, recent monthly sales reports once again show that one chain, JC Penney with an 8.1% comp increase, continues its remarkable recovery as the pacesetter in this category.

Recently, I was fortunate to be with fellow RAMA board member and JCP CMO, Mike Boylson at a seminar in Columbus. While there, Mike described Penney’s strategy and efforts in righting that ship and increasing its stock price by some ten times over the past five years or so. Now, I have not been a big fan of the Penney organization since it dismantled my long-term employer, Eckerd Drugs, and basically made one of the strongest brands disintegrate before our eyes in order to fuel the department store’s recovery. However, you have to hand it to the company and Mike’s marketing efforts in making the stores not only exciting to shop, but also one of the most creative branding voices in the marketplace. Penney’s advertising efforts have been consistently on target and freshly creative, but more importantly, the store has moved into marketing venues to elevate a strong brand (with the mature customers anyway) into a higher state of excitement.

Its pop-up store in Times Square was exciting and a great vehicle to say that this is not your father’s Oldsmobile anymore. It’s tie in with MTV with the VMA’s, its JAM after school promotion, and its ongoing sponsorship of high profile media events like the Academy Awards continue to build it’s brand. The strong commitment to its own brands, like Arizona Jeans Company, show a packaged good mentality works or as Doner CEO Alan Kalter says “Think like a brand, act like a store.” Penney’s new agreement with Sephora is going to separate them from all the other stores who sell cosmetics and fragrance. Facing stiff competition from Kohl’s and other specialty retailers, Penney’s is now looking at free-standing sites which, in my opinion, will generate more traffic and a lot of customers who don’t think the malls offer anything exciting.

But it’s not an easy journey. As Mike told me, the brand has a long way to go before it wins over the Gen X and Gen Y customers without losing its mature customers who still believe in the quality of the JC Penney experience. What impressed me is that Mike and JCP know that building and re-building the brand that James Cash Penney started over a hundred years ago is an ongoing and long-term commitment that must touch all areas of the store and its communications. Compare this to Sears who can’t quite figure out if it should sell washing machines or washed jeans. Or Dillard’s whose advertising looks like it’s right out Vogue magazine (a 1965 issue, that is). Penney’s realizes that it must get its brand positioned in vehicles and media in an innovative, unique way. The customers don’t want more of the same and they won’t reject the stores that don’t change. In fact, they simply won’t even consider them. Penney’s may not have won over everyone yet, but you got to give them credit for making the brand more relevant and positioning it to warrant more of the customer’s cash.

"The friendly smile, the word of greeting, are certainly something fleeting and seemingly insubstantial. You can't take them with you. But they work for good beyond your power to measure their influence." — James Cash Penney

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DANCIN' IN THE STREET

2006-09-20T14:05:00.000-05:00

To view the new Macy's campaign Just click on http://www1.macys.com/campaign/macystv_brand_relaunch.jsp

It’s been interesting seeing the nationalization of Macy’s taking place on televisions and in newspapers in almost every major market in the country the past couple weeks. Saying good-bye to venerable names like Marshall Field’s, Hecht Co., Burdines, Foley’s and others, Macy’s has launched a well produced national campaign built around one of my favorite Motown songs-- Martha Reeve’s and The Vadelas’ “Dancin in the Streets”. In many of the cities mentioned in the song, Macy’s banner now hangs high in shopping center after shopping center. The new campaign extols that the excitement of Herald Square is now being generated in market after market. Or is it?

Federated CEO Terry Lundgren is confident that the consolidation of the stores under the famous Macy’s logo will bring positive sales trends to the chain of stores that have been floundering the past several years. Maybe, Mr. Lundgren should listen more closely to his new theme song. Yes, the customers are not only dancing in the streets, but they are also spending more of their time shopping there as well. Part of the problem with today’s department stores is that they are still anchored in regional malls where today’s customers no longer dance around every week, much less shop. The customers are now excited about the new downtowns and neighborhoods where stores are cropping up more regularly and where customers love the convenience (and the ambience) of being able to park and shop right in front of the store. It holds true for the “Power Centers” which are being built all around town, including many on the same sites where defunct regional shopping malls were recently razed. The excitement of Macy’s flagship on Herald Square just doesn’t exist in the next great Town Center mall and the customers know it. They also know that the stores there haven’t branded themselves to their customers by providing an exciting—OK, at the very least, pleasurable —shopping experience.

What’s more they aren’t addressing the stiff competition from the Targets, Kohl’s, and others who are not only offering as much fashion but also doing it more conveniently and at a better price. Last week in a presentation to retail marketing executives, Michael Francis, Target’s CMO, said that their store’s biggest share of market gains are coming from the department stores. Wal-Mart has been taking share for years with price and selection. Target now takes it with fashion and the excitement that department stores were known for when they identified closely with the communities in which they were located.

The new “Streets” campaign is well executed, the message is clear, and the media weight will bring higher awareness for the Macy’s name—as if they needed it. However, it does not give me—a veteran of 8 years in the department store business—or any other customers a reason to shop a store that they haven’t visited in months. They have not given a reason to abandon Kohl’s, Crate & Barrel, or Men’s Warehouse and come back to the mall
So, Macy’s is everywhere. Now why should we shop there??

NEIGHBORHOOD BRANDING

2006-08-17T21:10:00.000-05:00

I finished one of the most interesting assignments of my career a couple weeks ago. Working with Levitz Furniture on Long Island for the past five months gave me an opportunity to live in Manhattan. This was something I wanted to do when I finished graduate school many years ago, but Uncle Sam had other ideas for me. Having traveled regularly to the Big Apple, I always appreciated how the city somehow works against all odds.

I think the late Charles Kuralt said it best in his "13 Favorite Places In The World"`segment that he produced prior to his death. One of the places that he discussed and featured was the town that he called home for most of his life—New York City. Kuralt said that the reason New York City works so well is that it is a large city made up of a thousand small neighborhoods. Each one of those neighborhoods was its own small town and each one had its own character. And so it was for me when I settled in to my small studio apartment on West 34th Street not far from Penn Station. I soon began to appreciate my neighborhood.

First, there was Ruppert, the evening doorman at my place, who always greeted me with a smile and an “Alright!” before a commentary on the day’s weather report. Next door the dry cleaner and laundry run by a Korean woman who would not only get your laundry back the same day but also have it at the apartment lobby for those of us who usually got back long after they closed at 7pm. Down the street, the Food Fair deli and market was a frequent stop when there was no dinner on the town and their fresh wraps were as good as any food I had at the Bryant Park Grill - the smiles on the two Middle Eastern owners was worth the visit. A little further, Shutters Bar and Café was a good place to stop on a cold or rainy night where John would serve up some of the best meat loaf (and I love meat loaf!) I’ve ever had along with some great Montepulciano d’Abruzzo wine, and jazz from Thursday thru Sunday. Across the way, the Wine Shop was open it seemed at all hours with a great selection and great prices for a 500 square foot establishment. Further down, the Skylight Diner lived up to it reputation as New York’s best diner (according to the Daily News) with wonderful breakfasts and a lot more. Of course, B&H Photo and Video on the corner was an experience showing that you could sell millions of dollars of electronics and photo gear and still stay closed for the Sabbath and every other Jewish Orthodox holidays. I could go on with a lot more and never have wandered more than a block from my front door (see the view above.).

Of course, there was the exception to a good branding retailer with the Kmart Penn Station. This Kmart does more business than any other Kmart in the country despite some of the surliest employees and a chronically broken escalator between the second and third floors. Sometimes location is everything.

What all the other places had in common was that--to the surrounding community--they were famous for something and had people working there who were more neighbors than just sales people. Isn’t that what retail branding is all about? As I travel around the city, I still wonder at the number of stores that do business in neighborhood after neighborhood. No shortage of competition here. But to their market (which may only be one square block) they are the best brand in their category. Duane Reade Drug Stores learned that when they realized that sometimes their market is only the building in which they are located and they serve it well while struggling with suburban locations. It’s all about finding your niche and getting the right people to live up to it everyday.

Now, back to Florida.

Ken

LADIES & GENTLEMEN, BOYS & GIRLS, CHILDREN OF ALL AGES…….

2006-06-26T20:13:00.000-05:00

I’ve been to the circus a few times over the past 4-5 years and I hadn’t heard those words to start of the show. The reason, of course, was that I had been to Cirque de Soleil and hadn’t given a thought to going to the “Greatest Show On Earth”. Yes, every year I would see the news reports when the circus came to town or left its home in Sarasota to go on the road once again. But I wasn’t the least bit motivated to go and see a three-ring circus filled with clowns, elephants, and trapeze artists all at the same time.

Until I read an article recently in USA Today. The story revealed how this year’s edition of the Ringling Bros . and Barnum & Bailey Circus had been re-imagined. In order to appeal to today’s young families who are living in three ring lifestyles with video games, computer-generated thrill shows, theme parks with high tech rides, and pocket games that they can play everywhere and everyway they want, the circus had to change. With hip-hop music, one big ring with exotic acts, and even its first female ringmaster, the circus has changed. Apparently it is paying off, according to Nicole Feld, the show’s co-producer and member of the Feld Family that revitalized the circus over 30 years ago when they bought it. As he says, they are constantly changing to appeal to today’s kids and in turn, make their parents hero’s for taking them to the circus just like our parents did over the years.

Amazing that more stores don’t get the same spirit of change to constantly appeal to their customers. Sure, Abercrombie, Coach, Banana Republic and others have re-invented themselves in the past successfully and they know that it’s an ongoing process. As more department stores become Macy’s, I ask what have they done to change for their customers? The malls and the stores anchoring them are much like the 3-ring circus—a lot of stuff going on but not many people paying attention or excited by them. Target has added excitement to the discount world, Costco has made food and warehouse shopping an experience. Publix and Wegmann’s have made grocery shopping an experience instead of a chore. The customers are changing faster than most retailers can change the theme lines of their latest commercials. I’ve been working in the furniture industry the past several weeks and am amazed how this industry has stayed the same in terms of shopping experience for the past several decades. Only IKEA and Rooms to Go seem to have noticed that the customer has changed.

The brand is built upon change…changing to build a better relationship with the customers, and like the circus the acts (the people putting on the show) have to change. Out with lion tamers and in with Chinese acrobats who do things we can’t even imagine. Out with old salesman and in with consultants who really understand the customer and what they really want.

So….on with the show!

GOOD BYE MR. SMILEY FACE, HELLO MEDIOCRITY AND COPYCATS??

2006-05-16T09:00:00.000-05:00

If you are going to write something about retail marketing you can’t help but discuss Wal-Mart . So the recent announcement that Mr. Smiley Face-- who starred in Wal-Mart price reduction campaign for so many years-- was being put out to pasture is more than just a simple decision to change ad themes.

One of Wal-Mart’s strengths (and there are many) has long been their market-leading perception as the lowest -priced retailer. You name the category, ask a customer and Wal-Mart always comes out first as the store with the lowest prices. That said, and price always being the first criteria for making a store selection, this was certainly one of the reasons for the chain’s growth to becoming the largest company in the world. I’ve always maintained that a good price perception merely gets you on the competitive playing field in retail, but Wal-Mart parlayed their price perception in becoming king of the hill on that playing field. However, it wasn’t just the low prices that has made Wal-Mart the favorite of more consumers than any other store. Their ongoing campaign with real people—customers and associates talking positively (and believably) while building the trust and respect through their many good works with Children’s Miracle Network, Buddy Walks, etc. - was more than just low prices always. It was genius in building customer trust and loyalty while driving prices lower for all consumers. Of course, this was to the dismay of many small retailers and suppliers who couldn’t compete. But it was and is their strength far and above the low prices that old smiley kept promoting.

So sales aren’t growing at the double digit rates of the past, now everyone falls in love with Target (even though they do 20% of Wal-Mart’s volume), and the company decides that the marketing that put them way out in front must change and bring in the competitor’s thinking (Target), packaged goods marketing strategy(FritoLay) and automotive insights(Chrysler). They fire the agencies that worked so hard to bring the success. Now, let's copy the competitors in getting celebrities who nobody believes shop at the store. And while we're at it, let's ex-communicate old smiley face.

It may work. But if all you do is copy the competition and resort to all the great marketing techniques that have made US automotive retailing lag behind the other countries,is that forward thinking? If you forget the key strengths that makes your check outs far more populated than the darlings of the retail press, is that being a leader? I’m not sure there will be any smiley faces in the boardroom in Bentonville or in the portfolios of investors.

What do you think?

Ken

MARCH MADNESS AND OTHER BIG SALE EVENTS

2006-03-30T15:55:00.000-05:00

As we wind down from the Sweet Sixteen, Elite Eight to the Final Four, another great sales promotion season winds down to an exciting finale. I was wondering what retailers did for a sale event before the NCAA and the television networks decided to make the college basketball tournament a national reason for yet another series of sales and promotions called March Madness. I guess they were Easter Sales back then when it was politically correct to tie in with a religious holiday (even though the bunnies and chocolate eggs had no religious symbolism at all.)

But here we are with Buick being the official car of March Madness and retailers in every category are trying to capitalize on a basketball tournament to drive people into their stores. As if any store really has a “shot from downtown” to convince a customer to make a trip to the store for “just another store.”

It’s interesting that none of the big box schools who were favored to win it all this year are no longer in the big show. Not so in the retail world where the best brands continue to do well and don’t need to rely on another fake sale to make their numbers. Case in point: Home Depot and Lowe’s. An article in the St. Petersburg Times, asks “who’s your home team?” The article compared the two giant home improvement retailers. Sure, they do a lot of the same things from the size of their stores and offerings to the competitive NASCAR teams that each sponsor. Some say the only difference is that one is orange and the other is blue (Go Gators!). But the article (and the customers) explain that there are a lot more differences that the color of the aprons. Lowe’s developed a brand strategy long that recognized that women were as important –if not more important—in the buying decisions for home improvement than their male counterparts. With an expanded commitment to appliances, a more comfortable environment, and targeted communications, Lowe’s gradually has eaten into Home Depot’s dominant market share and now does just slightly under the sales-per-store volume ($37.7MM vs. $40MM for Home Depot). Both retailers have been outstanding examples of brand strategy and execution- although Home Depot took its eye off the ball in terms of customer service a few years ago thus giving Lowe’s an opportunity to scoop up some share of market. Now Home Depot has recognized the importance of the female customer and is back on track to the tune of $81.5 Billion in sales annually.

Does that mean it’s really down to the Final Two in this retail tournament? What about Ace Hardware, Sherwin Williams, and others? Well, they certainly can’t compete in size, but they can provide the kind of personal customer service and convenience that the big boxes can’t. There’s a reason why chain drug stores prosper even though the Wal-Mart’s ,Target’s and Costo’s sell everything they have for less. It’s called a brand strategy that provides personal service and convenience. If the smaller hardware and home improvement specialists focus on their niche and don’t get caught up in the March Madness of another sale event, they can prosper. Then again, there’s George Mason U.. Who’d a thunk it??
Ken

PS – GO GATORS

Super Bowl Spots…. and The Problems with Ford & GM

2006-02-17T13:48:00.000-05:00

Over the past several days, there has been a lot of conversation about this year’s round of Super Bowl Commercials and whether they were worth the $2.4 Million price tag for the mere thirty seconds of air time. Frankly, I thought that this year’s crop fared better than the past couple years and actually were much better in terms of excitement and surprise than the game itself (I’m sure there are some Steelers fans who would disagree).
One of the things that struck me, however, was seeing the Ford Field signs throughout the coverage over the two weeks leading up to the game. I’m sure Ford must have felt proud that they spend the mega-millions in stadium naming fees when they saw all of the coverage. Just as they do when they watched Phil Mickelson in the FBR Open from Phoenix as he sported the Ford logo on his shirt even if he didn’t fare so well on the final 18 holes. I’m sure that GM must be proud of its title sponsorship of the Buick Opens (how many are there, anyway?)
You can’t help but wonder if these “product placements” could offset the recent bad news out of Detroit for both of these major car companies. Both announced major cutbacks and plant closing to “revitalize” these companies and their automotive brands. Do they really need the heightened awareness of seeing their names at these sporting events when Toyota has now taken over the lead as America’s most popular car brand?

Seems to me that the money would be better spent convincing consumers that the Fords and Chevy’s and Buicks are worth more consideration for their auto purchases by giving some rationale as to why their cars are really good machines with great styling and great performance. I think it’s called branding. But, No, the auto marketers would rather see their money go after sponsorships and awareness - building exposure that makes them feel good, but thenleaves the car buyer opting for more Asian manufactured cars. I was dismayed to hear that Ford had decided to discontinue making the renewed Thunderbird a few months ago. Not long after it was named car of the year, the company cut back on marketing funds and left it up to the dealers to sell the cars. Meanwhile, Toyota and Lexus (Hyundai and Kia as well) consistently give us a reason to buy their cars beyond another Factory Incentive or Rebate. People stopped buying the T-Birds and now they will go the way of the Taurus and Oldsmobiles. Stick to reinforcing the brand and maybe you’ll sell more Fords.

Which brings us back to the issue of retail branding at the store. Once again the companies cut back on their branding messages and leave it up to the salespeople who still think that selling cars is the same as it was in the ‘50’s and ‘60’s by offering rebates and saying “what will it take for me to get you to deal today?” The companies need to sell more reasons to buy the car and then train their showroom personnel to help the consumer get the right car—not just sell them. It’s another retail branding problem that can’t be fixed with another employee pricing promotion ,factory incentive or $2.4 M commercial. It’s building a relationship with the customer day in day out.

RANDY CURTIS
I just got back to my office and learned that a good friend and colleague, Randy Curtis had passed away suddenly yesterday. Randy was one of my frequent commentators on this blog and a real retail marketing professional. He was the creative spark behind the successful Wal-Mart campaigns over the past several years before, like me, he decided to share his knowledge with more retailers as a consultant. I just met with Randy last Friday at the Retail Advertising Conference in Chicago, where we had shared some great conversation and committed to each other that we would work together soon on a project or two. The thought of joining forces was invigorating and exciting for me. He was a great guy, a big supporter of RAMA, and a great family man . I will miss him

Start Spreading the News……..

2006-01-11T10:48:00.000-05:00

I was talking recently with a senior marketing executive with one of the country’s top retail chains about an upcoming presentation that I was scheduled to give in San Antonio (see photo above). During the course of our discussion, I asked her if she had given any presentations lately and her response was that “Absolutely not. Our company has a firm policy which prohibits executives making any speeches or participating in any discussions about the company’s plans or activities.” The rationale was that all this did was give the competitor’s more information than they should have. Having done a lot of speeches in my retail days, I was surprised since I always felt there may be a potential investor and certainly potential customers in the audience and that the information was always limited to facts that any good competitor would have been aware of if they were monitoring the marketplace on a regular basis.

Unfortunately, in their quest to preserve confidentiality, many stores don’t restrict their communications only to the public or the trade. Often, they are very closed-mouth to their own employees. Shelley Broader, President/COO of SweetBay/Kash ‘n Karry Markets in Florida, recently spoke to a group of executives in Tampa Bay. In that presentation, she touted the fact that the company—which is in the midst of a major re-branding effort—is extremely open and “shares every bit of legally available information she can with the press, colleagues and the competition.” She said: “ What’s more dangerous? My competition knowing my plan or my 10,000 employees NOT knowing my plan?”

Amen, Shelley! Unfortunately, so many companies, especially retailers, spend millions of dollars and countless hours, developing a communications plan to insure that their customers understand their brand strategy. Then, they spend barely nothing more than a video or memo to explain it (usually only once) to their employees in the field. No wonder the customers are often disappointed when they visit the store and find that it’s the same as it always has been or not as what they expected from the advertising that they saw, which enticed them to visit the store. Stores must be diligent about having a comprehensive and ongoing communications plan about the brand strategy to insure that the employees, especially at store level, live up to the brand every day.

A few years ago, I was in Kmart to get a fishing license for my annual bass fishing outing (Kmart was the only place nearby that sold them at the time, and as usual, I left this important task until the night before I was supposed to leave for the river.) Anyway, at the time Kmart was spending millions re-introducing itself at Big Kmart and spending millions on ads with even the late Bob Hope appearing in one of the TV spots. While waiting for my license to be filled out, the salespeople (Ann and Myrt—two 60 -year olds who certainly didn’t seem to be experts on any sporting goods, much less a fishing license) were conversing back and forth. So I asked them what they thought of the new “Big Kmart” that they worked for. They looked at each other wondering what I was talking about. Then Myrt said: “I don’t know. Pretty much the same old, same old, right Ann? Oh, we did get a new sign outside and some new badges.” That was it. No wonder the re-branding was so successful! The marketing dollars were all wasted and the Wal-Mart down the street continued to gain market share. To live up to the brand, employees have got to know what that brand means to them and to their customers.

What do you think? Happy New Year.

Ken

Here's Some Magic for the Holidays.

2005-12-13T16:35:00.000-05:00

This year I was honored to be a contributor to the Book "Marketing Magic" from Insight Publishing. This book features 18 interviews with marketing experts from various backgrounds and expertise, including Brian Tracy, author of "Turbo Strategies", and Jay Conrad Levinson, author of "Guerilla Marketing" and yours truly. I offer this book at my presentations for the list price of $19.95, but wanted to offer my blog readers a special offer. It's yours FREE if you just send me the names of five other executives who might benefit from my monthly blog. Or if you want to order a quantity for you and your staff, it's only $10 a copy(plus shipping). Just send me an email, and I will send the book to you right away.
I think it's pretty great reading with a lot of helpful insights in conversational style.

Hope you enjoy it.
Ken

‘Tis the Season to Remember

2005-12-08T14:14:00.000-05:00

Over the past couple weeks, I’ve had several conversations and phone calls about Wal-Mart’s holiday advertising which broke prior to Thanksgiving. Committed to not making the same mistake as in 2004, Wal-Mart aggressively launched a media blitz to insure that they would get out the blocks selling at 5 a.m. on Black Friday. They launched the holiday with a series of spots featuring celebrities like Garth Brooks, Martina McBride, and Destiny’s Child. Then, they essentially bought out the day before Thanksgiving television networks with spots touting their Friday morning blockbusters with as strong a price/item blitz as I have ever seen from any retailer.

While they claim that 2 million+ shoppers broke down their doors in the first two hours on Black Friday to get their $398 laptops and $179 flat screen televisions, I’m afraid that the world’s #1 retailer forgot that this is the season to remember what got you to the top spot in the first place.

It certainly isn’t running a feel-good campaign with big names singing nice songs, which looked a lot like Target campaigns of old. Actually, these reminded me of campaigns that used to make Dayton’s and Marshall Field’s the place for holiday shopping when department stores were just that. I don’t think running department store type of spots is what has made Wal-Mart the shoppers destination store all year long as well as the holidays. Then to come back with a price-item campaign for Friday morning specials when you have been touting “Always low prices. Always” for years just to make traffic goals for 7 hours on Friday seems really contradictory. Granted having an exclusive boxed CD set from Garth Brooks (even though he’s been retired for 4 years) is a real merchandising coup. But to go and break prices on laptops that cause people to trample each other just getting into the store and then have fist fights over one of only six that were in stock that morning does nothing but put you in the same boat that nearly sunk Kmart years ago. The news is filled with reports trying to discredit the company now that it’s so big. Why do they have to resort to old time tactics that not only disappoint customers who are used to being able to get what they see advertised at Wal-Mart but also to undermine the trust that they have so effectively built on their march to the top?

It seems they forgot what got them there. Real people talking about real savings on real items they want that are in stock. No doubt Wal-Mart’s campaign needed a fresh look and inspired outlook, but simply running a campaign that looks and feels like those done by the very retailers they took market share from every year is really a step backwards.

The New York Times reported that Black Friday sales were down .9% from last year and that it was a “lukewarm” sales day. I actually went to Wal-Mart on Black Friday at about 4:30pm (you think I'm crazy enough to be there at 4:30 AM?) to see what was happening and pick up some outdoor lights as well. There were no lines at the registers, there were no traces of the blockbuster items, and it was as exciting (from a customer standpoint)as a Friday in mid-August. It sure isn't the way I remember holiday sales from years ago. ‘Tis the season!

Here's to you and your--hope your holiday is more exciting!

Happy Holidays!

Ken

MAKING IT EASY—THE KEY TO BRANDING.

2005-11-06T21:38:00.000-05:00

Today, November 3rd, is World Usability Day. Have you planned all of your celebrations for this memorable event? If you haven’t, you might want to celebrate something significant—like the fact that you figured out how to hot sync your Treo or that you finally were able to set the right ringtone on your cell phone or Blackberry. In short, it’s the day founded by the Usability Professionals Association (product designers, testers, etc.) to signal the need for improvements in making things we use every day more easy to function in our life (according to USA Today).

Having spent a lot of time in the consumer electronics industry, I am well aware that one of the biggest consumer needs from the retailer is HELP in not only picking out the right model and brand but also assistance on how to get that gizmo to work right from the start. A big part of the burden certainly has to go back to the manufacturers who want mass market appeal but who in fact make their products extremely difficult to figure out and even harder to operate the stuff that they make.

Several years ago while at Eckerd, we worked with Ken Dychtwald and the Age Wave organization in an effort to make our stores more “friendly” to the growing mature market as we looked realized that the baby boom generation was moving quickly past 50 and looking at their sixties in the next 10 years. Besides looking at merchandising that met this customer’s needs (from reading glasses to Metamucil), we also looked at ways to make our stores easier to shop for an aging customer. Better signing, automatic doors, eye-level shelf positioning, and blood pressure machines were just a few of the things we addressed to make it easier for the 76 million baby boomers to shop our stores. Unfortunately, we didn’t do much with our people in the stores to make the experience more relevant and more usable. We still had 16 year-old high school juniors working in the pharmacy counter talking to 67 year old customers who needed help with hemorrhoid medications, vitamins, diabetic needs, etc.—all things that the clerks neither knew anything about nor did they often know what they were used for.

Inspired by what we learned from Age Wave, I asked a lot of questions later when I joined Circuit City and I pushed for us to challenge the Sony’s and Panasonics of the world to make a VCR or television with dials and labels that a person with bi-focals could read and understand. That still hasn’t happened, obviously, according to the Usability Professionals Association, and it will only happen if retailers demand it. They probably won’t because their sales associates don’t get it either. Not only do the store associates need to know the features of the products, but they also need to be able to relate to the growing mass market of people (like me) who have the cash but maybe not all the savvy (or eyesight) to understand the latest technology and how to use it. This is a big opportunity for companies that are “customer centric” or who claim to have “just what I needed” to keep me up to the state of the art in electronics. The Wal-Mart’s and Costco’s are going to continue to grow their market share in these categories, but they are not likely to provide any more help than to assist in loading the items in the customer’s car. It ‘s the specialty stores who have a big opportunity (and their best defense) to provide people who can help explain how to use the products and determine the right item for each customer. That’s where the Geek Squads can help, but they are basically an after-the-sale swat team. What about before the customer buys?? The marketing opportunity is to have the right people (maybe they should be 47 instead of 17 years old) who can relate to the customers and at the same time provide feedback to the manufacturers on how to make their products more usable. Maybe then, we could have a “World Helpful Associates Day”.
Have a great day.
Ken

AND THE WINNER IS….. LESSONS FROM THE WORLD OF BASEBALL.

2005-10-06T14:51:00.000-05:00

As the baseball playoffs got underway last night, the line-up of teams by and large looked the same as usual with the Yankees, Red Sox, Angels and –oh yeah, for the 14th straight year—the Atlanta Braves.

It’s hard to remember back to the days when the Atlanta baseball team came to our marketing group at Eckerd looking for potential promotional tie-ins with their sorry team of perennial losers. Now they hold the longest winning streak of any professional sports team. It hardly seems fair to someone like me whose Devil Rays finished last for yet another year in the American League.

As I read an interview between the Wall Street Journal and John Schuerholz, the Braves EVP and General Manager for all of those 14 straight playoff years, I was impressed on how the principles of building a consistently, great team is a lot like building a great brand, especially in the competitive retail world. When asked how he managed to achieve a record that any CEO would die for, Mr. Schuerholz said:

“It really turns on one significant principle, and that is surrounding yourself and filling your organization with quality people and providing them with a clear vision, an uncompromising game plan.”

Notice he didn’t say put together an exciting group of characters, have regular stadium promotions, and have a memorable team slogan. Once again it’s the people, stupid! Now I know there are some that will say that it’s just a matter of getting the best players, spend a lot of money on them, and the rest happens. Schuerholz talks about the entire organization and not just the players and coaches. Winning brands are the same. It’s not just having great merchants, great marketers, and dedicated operations people. It’s having everyone from the distribution centers to the sales floors understanding the brand vision and then executing it better than the store across the parking lot.

I’ve talked about the 5 steps of totalbrandintegrationÒ that we have developed to get everyone to live up to the brand everyday. It’s not coincidental that Schuerholz’ 5 Tips on Transforming a Culture of Losing are very similar to the branding principles:
· Gather everyone, communicate the plan and preach it daily. How often we forget to market our brand to our own people as effectively and as consistently as we do to our customers.
· Constantly remind them that it works. Just sending out a video and a newsletter is not gong keep the brand top of mind. It has to be talked every day at every store. The store managers are the team leaders.
· Don’t be afraid to get rid of the people who don’t buy in. There is no shortage of the right people for the job even at store level. You have to go after the right ones and recognize the attributes of your best people and replicate them. Let the rest of them go on the free agent list.
· Make the lowest level employees feel as important to success as the top-level executives. The people on the floor or on the phone in customer service are the one’s who have the interaction with the customer and make the brand a reality (or a false promise).
· Show trust in everyone to do their jobs well. We all talk about empowerment as much as we do about branding. The key is to living it with great people who understand what the company is all about.

In the coming days, we will hear a lot of interviews with the winning players and managers and they will likely say something to the effect that “it’s really a team effort” that makes winning possible. Winning consistently and having a preferred brand day-in/day-out, certainly is a team effort and the brand is the personification of the team and the vision.

Now back to the game.

IT’S ALL ABOUT PRICE. (Yeah, right.)

2005-09-12T13:35:00.000-05:00

There isn’t a presentation that I do or a discussion that I am involved with in this retail marketing and branding world which doesn’t come down to a discussion about low prices being the key to getting today’s consumer. No doubt about it. Every consumer market research study that I have ever seen ranks price as number one in importance in selecting a place to shop. I always point out that this is no surprise and that price just gets you on the playing field and it’s all the other branding and marketing activities that a store does which make up the customer’s mind as to where he or she is going to spend their dollars. It inevitably comes down to a discussion about value. After all, if it really was all about price, we’d all be driving Dodge Neon’s and doing all our shopping at Wal-mart.

That’s why it was interesting to see the news reports last week about Neiman Marcus’ 4th Quarter performance, which showed record-breaking results:

“Apparel and accessories retailer The Neiman Marcus Group Inc has enjoyed fourth-quarter and full-year profit increases, encouraged by full-price sales and expense control.

Fourth-quarter net earnings leapt 67 per cent to $34 million compared to $21m in the same period last year. Net sales totaled $851m compared to $784m the year before, while same-store sales grew 9.6 per cent.” Just-Style.com, 9/7/05

Wait a minute. Did that say “full-price sales” helped earnings increase 67%? Now, granted N-M has never been known as a place for great discounts. But if the consumer is so conservative and looking only for a good price at all levels of income, this just doesn’t seem to make sense. (Especially, when you read that Saks sales were down 0.3% for the month)

I didn’t have to wait long for an explanation. The day after reading this report, I was talking with a colleague of mine from the National Speakers Association and we were discussing my presentation focus and the importance of people in the branding strategy and execution. She indicated that she was a regular shopper at Nieman’s—not a really big spender, but a loyal customer. She said it was all about the way she was treated and that even though she didn’t consider herself a major customer, the store treated her as if she was one of the late Stanley Marcus’ dear friends. She said she regularly received mailings and personal phone calls advising her of new merchandise that matched her past purchases and tastes. More importantly, she said, “was the way she was treated when she walked into the store. “People actually called to me by name and welcomed me back. They made me feel like I was the most important customer in the department. And my friends, who sometimes accompanied me, were really impressed.”

Well, if it works at Nieman’s, it certainly works at the local grocer, the corner drugstore and the big box at the local Town Center. Give the customer personalized and interested service and they will come back and drive up your profitability. A few years ago, Yankelovich and Partners, did research which showed that over half (53%) of customers will pay as much as 10% more to get good service. So why don’t stores make sure that the people in the store understand this and perform to customers’ expectations. Unfortunately, it’s because management is too obsessed with the next great sale circular or full-page ad or major promotion. Loyalty is the key—both from customers and from employees—to driving up record sales and profitability. Stanley Marcus understood this a long time ago. It’s time for today’s merchants and marketers to get with it too. It’s a people business after all.

Let us know what you think.

Ken

The story behind the headlines.

2005-08-19T10:39:00.000-05:00

"Exec cleared of Kmart Fraud"
Headline Detroit News, 8/15.
"Wal-Mart author's theory says discounts are now entitlements" Headline, USA Today, 8/15

Much has been written about these two discount chains over the past several years, drawing comparisons (and mostly differences) about how one chain has succeeded unbelievably while the other has teetered on extinction for quite a while. A couple things occurred to me as I read these articles that I thought would be good material for this forum.

First, Charles Conaway, may have been found not guilty of doing anything illegal while he was CEO, but he certainly can shoulder a lot of the blame (as could some of his predecessors) for Kmart's ongoing loss of share, loss of sales, and loss of trust by its customers. The company simply ignored what competitors like Wal-Mart and Target were doing in building brands that people not only trusted but where people liked to work. The ongoing reliance on sales and promotions that were not supported in the stores not only turned off most of Kmart's customers but it depressed and de-motivated most of its employees. So the stores looked lousy, the inventories were never where the customer expected, and the customers basically had a poor shopping experience until they gave up.

Unfortunately, the company continued to reward this poor performance with big bucks at the top and big severances for doing a pitiful job of branding the company. The civil court may have found him not guilty, but the jury of customers passed their judgment a long time ago and they haven't forgotten.

Secondly, in his book, "The United States of Wal-Mart", John Dicker calls Wal-Mart the "champion of cheap" while maintaining that all customers care about any more is low prices and one-stop shopping. Well, there's no doubt that Wal-Mart's success has its foundation on having the lowest price perception of any retailer (notice I didn't say cheapest). For some reason, since Wal-Mart has become the largest company in the world, we think it's a fault that they have driven down prices for the consumer. The reality of it, as born out in countless research studies, is that the company has won because the customers trust them to have the lowest prices and to have what they want and need. And they trust the people working in the stores to make sure they do in a friendly way.

Is Wal-Mart a predator? I think "competitor" is a more appropriate description. As a company obsessed with getting the best prices and the best values for its customers, Wal-Mart has beaten a lot of lesser retailers (like Kmart and all those poor small town retailers who never provided good value to their captive markets). And it has developed an organization that believes they are providing the best for their customers. Sure there have been some guilty parties who have taken advantage of the company's strength and positions lately, but with over a million people in an organization, these have been the exception. In a recent store check (which I do regularly), I found the checkouts at both Target and Home Depot (2 of my favorite stores) to be fairly empty on a recent Tuesday night with only two checkouts open plus the self-service aisle. Wal-Mart, on the other hand, had at least seven open and ringing up big shopping baskets.

People shop Wal-Mart because they like it, they trust them, the like their people (who most of the time love where they work), and by the way they save money. That's not being cheap!

What do you think??
Ken

It's about people, not advertising!

2005-08-10T16:01:00.000-05:00

Just over a month ago, I finished an exciting and challenging assignment with Doner Advertising in Detroit. Doner is one of the leading agencies in the country and one which still specializes in working with companies who need to reposition themselves in a hurry in order to survive.

Working with a terrific account team in Detroit, I revisited the marketing department of Circuit City in Richmond, where I had been VP-Marketing back in 1994. The challenges were even greater now than a decade ago for the chain. However, instead of being #1 in the industry as it was back then , Circuit City now trailed both Best Buy and Wal-Mart as the preferred choice for America's consumer electronics dollar. It was a great opportunity as we worked to reposition the stores as the places that had "Just What I Needed" in the complex, sometimes-intimidating electronics business.

One thing became blatantly obvious and that was that the lines between category competition are more blurred than ever. No longer can a big box store only worry about its similar competitors and ignore the mass merchandisers, the warehouse clubs, the drug stores, department stores, and, oh yeah,even my old favorites, the chain drug stores. Don't forget all of the online marketers as well who have taught consumers that the easiest way to "shop" is to simply log on and take a look and learn. It still comes back to being the preferred choice by your target customer. Creating a brand that reassures you that you'll get just what you need, at a good price, with an easy return and service policy, and with the convenience of making it easy to get what you wanted and get back to your busy lifestyle.

However, I am more convinced than ever that the most important piece of the branding strategy is often left untouched by all the marketing efforts--the people in the store must live up to the brand everyday. We simply can't expect to hire some warm bodies, give them some essential floor training, and then expect them to personify the brand that we marketers spend so much time and money trying to develop with our customers. For the past five years, I have discussed this in presentations and conversations as we developed totalbrandintegration (tm) as a strategy to make the brand come alive at store level with everyone who comes in contact with the customer. I am more convinced now and am re-focusing my energies to develop programs that will integrate the people into the brand and help companies stop disappointing their customers when they come back to the store.

This web communication is the first of many that I hope will engage others in the business to bring ideas and concepts to the readers on how to better make the brand come alive at the store. Your input will be invaluable and will serve as the catalyst for more research and strategies to help retailers (and any other companies that serve customers directly) make it happen. I look forward to your help and comments.

This blog is just part of the process to keep me and my associates in this crazy business in touch about the business and what's going on today with the consumer.

I hope you'll join me often as we try to understand the consumer better and figure out ways to help companies become their brand of choice.

Let's go.
Ken