Category: Brand Basics

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Four Brand Lessons from Lululemon

(Reading Time: 3 minutes)

On Monday, Lululemon cut its revenue and earnings guidance sharply. This sent its shares tumbling more than 15%, to a two-year low.

This is the outcome of a pretty awful 2013 for Lulu, which included a product recall and comments from founder and chairman Chip Wilson that were, shall we say, a bit insensitive. (In December, Mr. Wilson announced that he was stepping down as chairman in June of this year.)

Lulu’s struggles offer us all an opportunity to brush up on some key brand lessons. From where I sit, the four most important lessons are these:

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“The Experiment So Far Has Been a Success.”

Experiment So Far Has Been a Success
(Reading Time: 2 minutes)

During the Discovery phase of a recent project, I was fortunate to spend some time chatting with the company’s founder.  Though he’s no longer very active in the business, he clearly conveyed the values on which the company was founded three decades ago. The employees live these values to this day.

He’s a wise, charming fellow, full of character, and I could really see why his customers loved him.  Among the dozens of kernels of wisdom that I gathered in that conversation, one really stuck with me.  When I asked him about the history of the company, he wrapped up a story of impressive growth by saying simply:

“The experiment so far has been a success.”

The more I think about this statement, the more I like it, and it reflects an excellent attitude for business-builders to adopt.  Let’s break it into pieces:

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Six Things on My Mind: Yahoo! Logo, AOL and Others

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Today’s version of the Yahoo! logo. Breathtaking, no?

30 Days of Churn: You might have heard that Yahoo! is revealing a new logo every day this month, as a build-up to the launch of the “official” new logo. They’re calling this campaign “30 Days of Change.” Legit question: Who cares? Is anyone really waking up in the morning eager to see today’s Yahoo! logo? Most every design has been evolutionary, not revolutionary, and thus unexciting – and if you’re trying to create a series, it helps to be interesting.  But more importantly, instead of another Yahoo! logo, I’d much rather they invest their resources in improving their user experience, which is the least reliable of the four email providers I use.

Who wants to work at AOL? It’s the kind of place where the CEO may fire you publicly, on a conference call, which actually happened this month. So much for whatever “corporate branding” initiatives they had underway.

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What I’ve Learned About Branding

What I've Learned About Branding
(Reading Time: 4 minutes)

Each month in Esquire magazine, there’s a feature called What I’ve Learned.  Celebrities or thought leaders (a top economist, for instance) are interviewed, and their words are presented as a string of short phrases.  There’s wisdom in surprising sources, and it’s always the first thing I turn to when my issue arrives.

I’ve created my own list of “What I’ve Learned About Branding” in my 20+ years as a positioning and strategy consultant, brand manager, CMO and agency partner.  I share it here in hopes that it might be useful to you:

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Who Really Builds the Brand?

(Reading Time: 2 minutes)

Within your company, who really builds the brand?  Which department is responsible for brand-building?

Trick question!  The answer is “All of them.”  Everyone plays a part in delivering on the brand positioning and bringing the brand to life.

Let’s use a hypothetical consumer packaged goods company as an example of “who does what” (the parallels to your own company should be easy to see):

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Brand Definition: A Concept the Entire Company Can Use

Brand Definition What Is a Brand
(Reading Time: 4 minutes)

Last week, I debunked the notion that a brand is a promise. Anyone can make a promise.  If you really want to build a brand, you’ll have to work harder than that.  So what’s a better brand definition?

My definition of a brand – your brand – is as follows:

Your brand is your total experience, as perceived by those you seek to motivate.

Every word in this brand definition is selected carefully.  A few key words have heightened importance and further implications:

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Heavy-Ass Weights & Brand Building Blocks

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I recently came across a quote from 8-time Mr. Olympia Ronnie Coleman that made me think about brand building blocks. The guy’s undeniably got a way with words:

“Everybody wants to be a bodybuilder.  But nobody wants to lift no heavy-ass weights.”

Heed this man’s lessons or he’ll bench-press you into next week.

When I present to or train brand leaders, I’ll often ask them what they hope to achieve with their branding efforts.  Almost always, I’ll hear some variation of the following:

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Target Market Definition: How to Create Yours

Target Market Definition Brand Strategy
(Reading Time: 5 minutes)

In a previous post, we met Beth and Andy, two fictitious (but reality-based) designers who take very different approaches to their target market definition.

Andy’s approach is “I can do it all, and all sales are good sales.” Beth is more deliberate and precise.  By defining her ideal client and project, she also defines the kind of business she doesn’t want. Hers is a much more effective approach, particularly for challenger brands.

Today, I’ll show you how to create your ideal target market definition. The framework is meant to be broad enough to apply to everything from a solo consultant to a major consumer brand, so it will need to be tweaked as appropriate to your particular situation. (Also, for the rest of this post, I’ll use the word “consumers” to include clients and customers as well.) Continue reading “Target Market Definition: How to Create Yours”

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The Power of NO

Power of No Brand Strategy
(Reading Time: 3 minutes)

There’s been a lot written about the “Power of YES” – the belief that life is best experienced through an attitude of affirmation.  And I agree with that, in most instances.  But I’m an equally firm believer in the Power of NO.

Stephen Covey

The Power of NO is really a matter of focus.  Stephen Covey crystallized the concept for me when I first read The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People nearly 20 years ago.  Mr. Covey wrote: Continue reading “The Power of NO”