What’s love got to do with it: Taking the pulse of your brand

Not so long ago we had to rely on chance to introduce us to our love matches. We liked to call it “fate,” and make sweet movies celebrating the blind date and happy accident. Now, though, thanks to a merging of the social and digital spaces, matchmaking sites are flourishing based on making the search for love more predictable.

Sure, a big draw of matchmaking sites is that they take the ‘chance’ out of ‘chance meeting’, but the real hook may be in the scientific precision of the online personality inventory, guaranteed to match us with the optimal mate.

As it turns out, though, the heart knows a lot more about these things than the head. A recent study conducted Eli Finkel of Northwestern University found that people choose the more compatible mate by following their gut, not the rational list of optimal personality traits spat out by a matchmaking algorithm.

The same idea of emotional response applies to brands. Often “what people want” is based on an inventory of items that have been reported from that rational side of us—you know, that way we like to think of ourselves as logical and making decisions based on that logic. But, as Brand Keys has found, people choose brands like they choose mates: more on basis of emotional factors than rational ones. In fact, that ratio is 70:30 heart-over-head.

What’s the cautionary tale for the brand manager here? Thinking too much about a logical set of preferences, like superficial commonalities between people, can distort your ability to identify what has real meaning.

In love as in brands, “the heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.” Remembering this will keep your brand from ever skipping a beat.

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Style and Substance: What Luxury Fashion Can Teach Us About Branding

“Brands are dead,” we’ve been told, and it feels like everyone’s out searching for the smoking gun. Did the economy kill brands, or was it globalization? Maybe it’s advertising fatigue?

We can muck around the crime scene all we want, but the simple truth is that brands are NOT dead. Nor are they “back.” In fact, they never left. Not real brands, that is. What they are likely referring to on the death certificates are category placeholders: famous names that are interchangeable for other famous names. Everyone knows them, but not for anything much in particular.

In this soft economy, hard luxury has thrived. That’s because these brands provide a not-so-little-thing called meaning, which translates into value. And more than ever it’s about value: the interaction between price and what we get in return. In truth, that’s what the economy has impacted most—a closer examination of what’s behind the brand curtain as consumers have searched for more value, not just lower prices.

Yet brand managers, staring down the barrel of a lingering recession, often blame high prices for lost sales. It’s reactionary, in order to move product. But we know that people don’t choose a product in a purely logical way. Brand Keys proprietary research points to a split: rational factors make up only about 30% of why we choose what we choose. Emotional factors account for the rest.

And that’s the luxury advantage. Luxury brands know how to create and foster emotional value. It’s this distinction that enables them to continue to live so large, even in a time of constricted budgets. What luxury brands do well is exhibit clear brand values that lead to a meaningful emotional differentiation in the mind of the consumer.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, “The report of [brand] death is greatly exaggerated.” Unfortunately, the same thing can’t be said for category placeholders.

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How to Hack Someone’s Computer

As the digital world becomes more and more complex, the need for deliberate, thorough security grows. Yes, we know, you’ve got everything “password protected.” And yes, not every hacker is like the guys in the movies who are able to keyboard their way through complicated layers of encrypted, password-protected security faster than a gamer boots up a new version of Call of Duty.

In the real world it’s a lot easier than that. And no, this isn’t actually a tutorial about how to break into someone’s computer or smart phone or tablet. Just an observation of sorts. A caution to our loyal readers, if you like.

The Brand Keys 2012 Customer Loyalty Engagement Index reveals that consumers choose laptop computers on the basis of anything but security. Instead, consumers tend to select on the basis of factors like innovative design and brand reputation. This doesn’t mean that security isn’t important, but that it does mean that it’s an afterthought. Which becomes obvious when you consider how people select their security passwords.

A recent study found that the most common password used by the average business is – wait for it – “Password1.” It’s easy because it meets the three recommendations that appear in most electronic device security applications: a word that has capital and lower case letters and a numeric. It’s also wildly creative, as the many thousands of people who share it could tell you.

Below is a list of the 10 most-favored passwords. If yours is there you A) ought to think about changing it, or B) post your Social Security, credit card, and bank account numbers, and any other private information you think might be useful on your Facebook page.

1. Password1
2. letmein
3. Secure1
4. Abc123
5. 123456
6. monkey
7. Facebook1
8. passworD
9. link2012
10. (your first name)

Oh, and though it’s from an older, non-digital source, it would be well to remember the words of Confucius when setting your passwords: “When in a state of security, do not forget the possibility of ruin.”

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Customizing Strategy in a Digital World

Knowing the right thing to say isn't something only people have to worry about. Brands also think about it quite a bit. In fact, they have entire departments focused on figuring out exactly that.

Differentiating and engaging brand communications, which had become difficult at the end of the last century, became even more so when digital entered the brand-communication game and changed the rules. Not all of the rules of course, but knowing which ones, and with who, and exactly how, has thrust brands back in time to where television advertising was at its beginning – bravely going forth and trying things.

Brands certainly have better tools available today, but that can sometimes just muddy the water. Knowing exactly where the fish are, as any experienced fisherman will tell you, doesn't necessarily mean they are going to bite. You have to know specifically what they want. And it doesn't get you much to stand and count them. Especially as they are swimming by, in search of something else.

This challenge in the digital platform pond deeply interested us, and we set about to help brands figure the tricky part out. As firm believers that a consumer-centric strategy should drive all that a brand does out in the world, we started there. That, it turns out, was the key to linking strategy and technology.

We have demonstrated what many CMO's suspected was true: there is no one-size-fits-all for communicating in the digital space, or with people highly involved in digital. We have named those folks "Higitals," for their high-involvement with digital, and because saying "the people who represent the future" was too long. And we liked the sci-fi techie sound to it, to be honest.

But what we really care about is seeing how vastly different they behave and approach brands – not simply a demographic generation gap, but one linked directly to digital usage, and we’re particularly proud that The American Association of Advertising Agencies has chosen Brand Keys to present this innovative research on digital platform engagement at their annual conference on March 27^th in Los Angeles, all focused on transformation.

Brand Keys was selected based on the transformational nature of our Digital Platform GPS: groundbreaking syndicated research that links brand strategy with digital communication platforms, enabling brands to locate the spot where strategy and technology intersect. If you’re not attending this year’s 4A’s Conference and are interested in seeing some of the Digital Platform GPS output, contact Leigh Benatar at leighb@brandkeys.com or call him at 212-532-6028 X15.

The bottom line: a brand must determine how engagement with digital intersects with brand engagement in order to strategically direct its efforts there. The retro-look is over for brands that are stuck in counting clicks and calling it a day.

We've all seen enough of brands posting pictures and updates on Facebook, imitating a person. For many consumers, that imitation is not the sincerest form of flattery, or winning any real friends.

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Six Brands to Consider and 6 Suggestions of What to Do When February Flowers Bring March Allergies

Months of perfect winter sunshine without a single winter storm. Crocuses opening in January and daffodils in bloom by February. Spring, at a time when we are all typically still hunkered by the space heater, cursing ourselves for our failure to live in Tahiti.

Yes, it’s been a generous winter. But even as March springs us forward, many people are falling back (into bed, that is). Cold-flu season has seamlessly given way to the worst month for seasonal allergies that anybody cares to remember, causing a mass congestion that’s, well, nothing to sneeze at.

When the harassed masses open their medicine cabinet, which OTC allergy medicine brands do they reach for and which are weeded out? According to Brand Keys’ 2012 Customer Loyalty and Engagement Survey, the 6 major allergy relief brands rank as follows:

1. Claritin
2. Zyrtec
3. Benadryl
4. Chlor-Trimeton
5. Sudafed
6. Tylenol

Their order is an indicator of how well these brands are seen to meet consumers’ expectations in the category, and have been rising in perfect time with the pollen counts. And since even front-runner Claritin does not match the lofty consumer Ideal, no one brand is truly completely considered the ‘cure for what ails’ yet.

Keeping that in mind, we’ve banked 6 good seasonal allergy tips for you:

1. Try to stay indoors when the wind is high - pollen travels.
2. Try to stay indoors until midday. Dawn till then is when the pollen counts are generally at their highest levels.
3. Keep the windows closed and the air-conditioning on, giving you an allergen free bubble.
4. Keep the grass low. It turns out that flowers are not your friend.
5. Wear sunglasses that fit well. This will keep pollen out of your eyes.
6. Do not sleep with unwashed hair. Pollen transfers from your hair to your pillow, increasing your odds of breathing allergens in.

The most current rankings and the suggestions above are what we can offer up for some relief at the current time. Although for what it’s worth, comedienne, Lily Tomlin once opined, “For fast-acting relief, try slowing down.” Just a thought and Gesundheit!

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Moneyball in the Digital Space

The idea of using data to win the brand game is not new. But if the film "Moneyball" taught us anything we can translate to the increasing complexity of digital, it's that the players should never become more important than what the team needs: results. Playing a kind of "smartball" on brand teams today means insisting that digital players be leveraged against a larger strategy. In short, that a brand's playbook is not a story of technological possibilities, but a diagram of brand profitability.

This critical need led to the birth of Brand Keys’ Digital Platform Engagement Index (DPEI), the first large-scale syndicated work to link consumers’ emotional and rational decision-making across 83 categories to the most widely used 14 digital platforms – giving brands a Digital Platform GPSsm that locates the cross-hairs of brand and digital engagement.

In identifying the intersection of digital and brand, we also identified a new demographic group. We call them the “Higitals,” who represent the top 20% as regards digital involvement. It would, of course, have been a lot simpler if it turned out that we could define this group as consumers who spent a particular amount of time with digital platforms and leave it at that. But life – like digital – isn’t simple. It’s very, very complex, as CMOs have been discovering.

It turns out that digital platform engagement differs by category. So being classified as a “Higital” when it comes to the Airline category is defined as those consumers who spend 28 to 35 hours on digital platforms per week. Cell phones, 50 to 84. Major League On-Line Gaming, 65 to 92.

An examination of those who choose to engage with a category and are in the top 20% of the digital involvement range also demonstrates a dramatically different way in how they “see,” what they expect, and how they approach the engagement-buying-loyalty decision. Also how they see digital working in the category space. In short, Higitals are not only high users, but that usage moves them in dramatically different ways from the general population.

And that matters to all of us to deal in building brands and engagement and loyalty and sales, because they bear witness to what we have suspected for a long time: a change is indeed afoot, as Sherlock Holmes reminds us. We need nothing less than an explosion of previous limitations if we are truly to understand and strategically and effectively participate in that change, and we believe that the debut of this kind of research that will change the way the game is played.

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Making Sense of Amazon.com: Retail, Publishing, Digital, and TV(?)

Looks like Amazon is joining Hulu, Netflix, and YouTube in getting into the original TV content business.

Joe Lewis – former exec in development at 20th Century Fox and Comedy Central, currently VP, Production at Amazon Studios – briefly listed his title on LinkedIn as VP, Original Television at Amazon. Apparently, Amazon has also been looking to hire creative execs and development folks too. Which sounds, suspiciously like the foundation for original content development to us.

How successful might this be? Well in our Loyalty and Engagement Index, Amazon is #1 in terms of loyalty in the Online Retailer category, and #2 in the still-germinating Tablet category so all the brand and distribution values seem aligned pretty well. All they need now is content.

Consumers want content. We know this based on the explosion of and increased adoption levels of numerous devices for outreach. They may still be watching linear TV, but if leading-indicator loyalty metrics and in-market sales mean anything, they also want original content. From sources other than the usual suspects. And the sources of for that are constantly proliferating. Netflix just launched Lillyhammer, an original series starring Steven Van Zandt of Sopranos fame, and is readying a remake of the 1990 political thriller, House of Cards. You can check out the original on Netflix or Amazon Instant video.

Online streaming service providers are clearly on the hunt for new ways to enhance offerings, and, given the consumer and marketplace tends, original TV content makes a lot of sense. And based on past successes, Amazon doesn’t do things that don’t make sense.

As we used to say, “stay tuned.” Whichever device you’re using.

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Halo Effects as Microsoft Announces Game Release

That squeal of fanboy joy you might have just heard is due to the fact that Microsoft announced that there will be a Halo 4.

Yes, you heard right. Halo 4 will be released in time for holiday 2012, marking the start of a new trilogy for Xbox 360 and giving gamers yet another foray into the world of the Covenant and the Spartans. The game is in development at Microsoft's internal 343 Industries, and this puts a lot of pressure on them, as this is the most profitable gaming franchise Microsoft has.

OK, some of you don’t care. But Major League Gaming is big business. Halo Reach became the 3^rd best selling game of 2010 (just behind Call of Duty: Black Ops and Madden Football and sold 4.7 million units by 3Q’11. At $59.99 a unit, you do the math). And loyalty – and it’s critical component of being able to meet or exceed expectations that move at the speed of the consumer imagination – is really important to a franchise like this.

This year we added Major League Gaming to our Customer Loyalty Engagement Index, and the dozen franchises that received top mentions ranked as follows:

1. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare
2. Halo
3. Battlefield/Madden Football
4. World of Warcraft
5. Starcraft 2/Batman Arkham City/Diablo/NBA 2K12
6. Crysis
7. Gears of War
8. Elder’s Scrolls of Skyrim

For the Halo introduction a trailer features Cortana pleading for help from John (aka, Master Chief), after events of Halo 3 when Master Chief is left in Cryostasis. Master Chief awakens and returns to confront his destiny and face some ancient evil that threatens the fate of the entire universe. Then some really cool stuff happens.

Of course, what’s really cool is all that loyalty. And all those sales.

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The Case of the Disappearing Airline

When you get into work on Monday you’ll find that the Continental Airlines brand has vanished for good. That’s when the airline and United, the 4^th and 3^rd largest carriers respectively, will adopt a single passenger reservation system. The 2010 $3.2 billion merger, created on paper – and now by brand – the world’s largest airline: United Airlines.

The new company spent much of last year re-branding as a single carrier, and have been re-painting the planes in a kind-of-combination of logos including Continental’s old blue-gold-white Wiffle-ball globe image on the tail, and a new-style United name on the fuselage.

OK, we absolutely acknowledge that mergers are often more about the boardroom than the brand. But based on the 2012 ratings by airline passengers in our Customer Loyalty Engagement Index, maybe they should have reversed the design process. Put the blue-and-white United “U” tulip on the tail and “Continental” on the planes’ chassis, because here’s how airline brands ranked:

1. Continental
2. Southwest
3. Delta
4. United
5. JetBlue
6. US Airways
7. American
8. Midwest

So early Saturday morning, the Continental.com website will disappear in favor of a United-branded site, and the Continental brand will fly off into the sky to join defunct airline brands like TWA, Braniff, Eastern, and Pan Am.

Someone once noted that there’s no empirical test for taste, and we agree. We’ll leave the liking or disliking of the new visual mashup to you. For some there’s some small comfort that they ended up keeping a piece of the Continental brand.

Ultimately the real test will be whether they keep Continental’s loyal customers as well.

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