Dissecting FT Weekend’s New Branding

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Two months ago The Financial Times refreshed FT Weekend. This was introduced through an integrated marketing campaign “aimed at a growing readership who favour the immersive experience of print on the weekend while remaining highly engaged with digital journalism during the week.” That is an insightful and challenging objective.

What piqued my interest was the print component. The campaign’s tagline grabbed me (isn’t it great when that happens?). The three lines are compelling. “World-class writing” is sharp and smart. I can see how they arrived at it and am grateful they did. The cornerstone of journalism is a free press. That means possessing honesty and objectivity and marrying them with insight. Those are lofty ideals to sell a paper. Perhaps too lofty and I expect FT and their advertising agency thought so too.

Instead they now focus on global reach and fresh perspective along with how they write and communicate. The three words in the tagline are absolutely power-packed. The line represents the core skill-set of journalism and what must be the overriding differentiator of any publication online, off or both. That is quality of writing. As far as I know no other publication is landing on that notion or boldly claiming it even though it is fundamental.

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The Appeal of Writing Cabins

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You do not have to be a writer to want a private little cabin…but it helps. The solitude, peace and focus could keep the words flowing. Here is a question, could you go without Internet in your small pad? Author Jonathan Franzen writes in the big city but on a computer without online connection. And that is the point, to make sense of the world either through fiction or nonfiction, you have to disconnect. Imagine doing so in any of these tiny muses.

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Turf War?: Consultancies and Agencies

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Consulting firms have always sized-up the marketing space as a potential service offering. They have flirted with it for decades. Most large-scale forays have ended up in retreat after just a few years. Meanwhile, ad agencies have long-looked to shore up their dusty, old revenue models and expand by purportedly delivering more strategic offers. This too, has been largely episodic and unsuccessful.

Stick around and I will tell you why neither have historically worked but why they may work now. First off let’s substantiate that this mash-up is taking place:

  • Eight of North America’s top 10 agencies are owned by consultancies. Accenture has acquired at least 40 of them. Deloitte, Accenture, KPMG, PwC, and McKinsey now have agency arms.
  • Deloitte is out to create “the world’s first creative digital consultancy.” Meanwhile, IBM’s digital agency unit, iX, has over 10,000 employees and 1,000 designers in 25 offices worldwide.
  • Del Monte Foods selected Epsilon as its U.S. creative agency of record reflecting a fresh focus on data-driven marketing and a move away from traditional advertising agencies.
  • PwC made waves in 2016 when they appointed their first Chief Creative Officer. It should be noted that PwC also named a Chief Purpose Officer, which seems very much like an agency-thing-to-do.
  • Omnicom created Hearts & Science, an integrated digital agency leveraging technology to scale customer relationships. It has attracted Proctor & Gamble and AT&T as clients.
  • Razorfish, a division of Publicis Groupe, partnered with Adobe to build its own digital marketing platform.
  • Starcom MediaVest Group launched marketing consulting brand Zero Dot and sibling Zenith soft-launched a media-focused consultancy called Apex.
  • R/GA and GroupM now offer broad-based consulting services for the purposes of higher margins while securing traditional ad business. This is the strategy of O&M’s strategy consultancy, Ogilvy Red. Carla Hendra, global chairman of Ogilvy Red, is quoted as saying, “If we sell $1 of consulting work, down the road it can lead to $3 to $4 dollars of communications work.”

Clearly, traditional lines are crossing and blurring but why?

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How to Differentiate Gum

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Talk about a crowded category. It is tough to chew through all the options. How do you choose a gum brand? It is a rare product where price is not really a consideration. Let’s face it. Gum is a commodity. I would rather be a bottled water brand manager. When I walk up to the “wall of gum” in a convenience store I just grab what is convenient. Brand name, type of packaging, colours, logos, flavour, brand owner…none of it matters. But I do have a differentiating idea. Look for it after I prove my point of commoditization with these photos…

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Jeff Chats Canadian Brands

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This article originally appeared in The Globe and Mail.

It works for Canada Goose, but how far can ‘made in Canada’ go? by Shelley White

Sun, sand and surf are not three things we’re internationally renowned for in Canada. Yet one of our hottest exports of the moment is Shan, a line of chic, high-end resort and swimwear that is designed and manufactured entirely in Laval, Que.

In addition to flagship stores in Montreal and Toronto, Shan has boutiques in Miami and the Hamptons, and 65 per cent of its revenue comes from the 30-odd countries it ships to, says Jean-François Sigouin, vice-president at Shan.

Shan is a line of high-end resort and swimwear that is designed and manufactured in Laval, Que., which allows it to retain full control over its product. As 65 per cent of its revenue comes from abroad, the “Made in Canada” brand works for the company because its international buyers recognize that to mean quality, the company says.

The suits aren’t cheap – they run about $300 each – but that’s sort of the point, says Mr. Sigouin.

“The philosophy of the brand is to offer quality instead of quantity,” he says. By manufacturing in Laval instead of overseas, the company has full control over its product. “We are totally vertically integrated from the design to production to retail because we have everything in the same building.”

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A For-Profit Mindset: Trends in Association Branding

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Years ago I spoke at a conference focused on crafting association business strategies. This was in the late nineties while in the Marketing and Customer Management Practice at PW (now PwC). My work to that point focused on professional service businesses and consumer products. To tell the truth I was filling in for a colleague who fell ill.

The presentation went well but it was the conversations following that stuck with me. In short, I was rocked by the complexities of the industry and the challenges faced by these entities. iacpconferencephoto1-520x346Associations have always been “up against it”. All share certain issues. After working with four associations in the past two years, we have discovered the following:

Cost Not a Benefit: in many cases, members join to maintain accreditation or there is a penalty for not keeping membership but not necessarily claimable upsides.

The “Nonprofit” Label: it suggests a softer culture, less talented employees than the private sector (but stronger than the public sector!), and lack of depth and sophistication in leadership, management and planning. Let me be clear…this is perception not reality.

Overlap: one only has to look at the marketing and advertising industry to see that an agency in the United States could belong to easily over twenty different associations. Imagine being a retailer or in healthcare and that number is many times higher. This makes it important for associations to differentiate. When you think about it associations are competing against every other association out there and be held to the standards of the best. Also note there are associations for every conceivable group in the world…there are even several associations for associations!

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Advertising Agency Office Design

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Advertising agency office design has always fascinated. Even before joining the industry I interacted with agencies and appreciated the creative effort to dress up their workplaces. Office design is a complex puzzle of practicality, utility, image, productivity, and more. The intended result in the case of advertising agencies is to communicate the brand and culture of the business.

I have been involved in the design and decorating of six agency office spaces. These required attention to layout, spaciousness, flow, natural light, sound control, collaborative spaces, and break facilities. Unfortunately, individual work areas often get short-changed to accommodate a certain desired impact.

Ironically there is precious little differentiation among competing agencies when it comes to office design. I have been in over 100 offices of various advertising, branding, public relations, digital and media agencies. Based on my observations I can conclude they are not immune to trends and these trends force them to look the same.

Sadly too many agency office designs have one imperative…impress the client who may visit once a quarter for a few hours. As you can imagine, this will comes at the expense of employees who spend 60+ hours a week in the space. Office design is an opportunity to tell an agency’s story but a few macro trends are driving a lack of differentiation.

Look Like a Restaurant

I have done a few double-takes when entering an agency office. In some cases I thought I was on the wrong floor in the wrong building. Tons of agencies are striving to look like a high-end restaurant, a hip lounge, pub, coffee bar, summer patio or all of the above. A designer told me this directive originated from agency leaders who believed the millennial workforce wanted to be in a bar at all times. I am not talking about just the office kitchen or eating area. This design dominates the entire space. It also has a productivity factor…it is employed so the staff do not leave for a bite or drink offsite. Staff should be encouraged to get out, observe, and interact with people who may buy their client’s brands.

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100 Staff: An Advertising Agency Tipping Point

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Starting any business is a bold move. Not all survive and few truly thrive. Those that do face the challenges of managing growth and staying true to what made them successful in the first place. This is an interesting tension that I recently discovered in working with four advertising agencies.

These businesses had grown to 100 or more staff. Of course, that metric in, and of itself, is not an indicator of sustained success. The good news is the agency leaders know that. In fact, these leaders were concerned because interesting things happen when the payroll hits 100. Here are some issues that arise:

  • Agencies of 15 or 30 or even 75 employees possess a start-up or boutique feel. When you hit 100 this weirdly begins to dissipate.
  • You don’t know everyone any more. Small agencies talk of being saatchi-saatchi-office-funkt-1“family” where everyone has each other’s back. While a strong culture can keep this rolling as staff size grows, it cannot mitigate the realities of being larger. This is compounded when they open up other offices.
  • A bigger payroll and presence prompts new business pressures. This can mean chasing the wrong work to keep the machine humming.
  • Founders and principals move from client service oversight to functional roles. Marketing, people, service and product development and other areas need full-time leadership. This transition can be bumpy and skill-sets are stretched.
  • Specialisms and differentiators begin to lose their luster. You simply cannot make the same claims. Being “nimble”, as an example, gets called in to question.

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“Hang in There, Baby!”: The Tao of Motivational Posters

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Do you remember the company Successories? It was responsible for the cheesy posters that hung in offices all across North America. Successories was founded in 1985, by Mac Anderson who, as a hobby collected quotations and motivational writings. Mac took these quotes and added them to a vaguely relevant stock photo. Close your eyes and picture a soaring eagle (setting goals), synchronized rowing crew (teamwork), sharpened pencil (ideas) or mountain climber (perseverance).

These were incredibly popular and at one point the company had stores in malls selling all manner of imagemotivation and inspiration accessories. I saw a lineup to get into one in a Galleria in Dallas. It did not take long for wags to mock the format. This gave way to a wave of de-motivational posters that brought people back down to earth. In some cases the mockery was so well done that it was difficult to tell the two camps apart. This proves that imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery but parody is envy of the original idea.

Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery but parody is envy of the original idea.

If you spend two minutes on the Internet or thirty seconds on any social media, you will see Mac’s original idea is alive and well. Instagram and Tumblr is replete with motivational quotes and writings artfully arrayed on various backdrops. Hundreds, if not, thousands of blogs are dedicated to these positive provocations. People the world over on Facebook share these encouragements in hopes of connecting with like-minded souls or, by doing, give themselves a little lift. Twitter’s 140 characters pump out imagethousands of pithy expressions every minute that encourage and cajole.

The original intent of motivational posters was to make people achieve more, or to think differently about the things that they may be learning or doing. It was about challenging beliefs and looking at the world in a fresh way. CBS News concluded that modern motivational posters “are geared more toward things that need to be done than things that are good to believe”. In other words, motivation has become a task or bucket list of things to do or buy versus a perpetual state of being.

Motivation has become a bucket list of things to do or buy.

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The Psychology and Business of Buffets

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I remember in my youth in the 1970’s and 1980’s when the competing Ponderosa and Bonanza restaurants first offered salad bars. These were innovative buffets of the time. They had the now recognizable sneeze guards and offered a semi-healthy splash of food even if it was just iceberg lettuce and Thousand Island dressing.

That was probably to distract us from the wafer-thin tough steaks and watery sour cream clotted baked potatoes that were those chains’ signature meals. I always wondered why two competing restaurants mined an old television show for both their names.

Over 20 years ago, I visited The Royal Fork in my hometown of Winnipeg. It was the first full-time, all-the-time buffet restaurant in town. It was if I had become Henry VIII or Caligula. I could fill my plate(s) with a mix of fried chicken, mounds of meatballs and mashed potatoes, pounds of pork chops and pasta, tons of turkey, and well, it goes on. Carbs and meat were preferred to anything feigning itself to be better for you.

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