Brand Immersion is now Nucleus

Brand Immersion has moved to Nucleus, located at nucleusbranding.com. We’ll now be posting exclusively to that site and we’ve moved the latest Brand Immersion posts over to the new site.

Please visit us at the Nucleus site and enjoy its many offerings: information about who we are, what we do, what drives us, and, of course, our blog. Thank you for your interest!

Refreshing branding

KFC is creating a reservoir of goodwill by refreshing Louisville Kentucky one pothole at a time.

CHICAGO (AdAge.com) -- Don't be surprised if you see Col. Sanders out filling potholes. In an unusual cause-marketing push, KFC is tackling the pothole problem in Louisville, Ky., in exchange for stamping the fresh pavement with "Re-freshed by KFC," a chalky stencil likely to fade away in the next downpour. This past holiday season, Charmin provided a public restroom in Times Square for the third year running. The company has also developed an application for iPhone and BlackBerry that helps consumers find toilets when the need arises. Samsung has installed electrical charging stations in many major airports to help travelers stay connected while in limbo.

Brands that lead with behavior, engage with the community, and that have a sense of civic responsibility are the brands we'll long remember and value through the recession and after it.

What do you think? And what other brands are doing the right thing and creating goodwill?

Brand Failure and the Big Three

Recently I was asked to share some thoughts on the brand failures of the big three automakers with Adaora Udoji, John Hockenberry and the listeners of their Public Radio show, The Takeaway.

Adaora asked; "Did the brand of the American made car fail the American consumer? If so, when? "

Great brands know themselves and shine like beacons; lighthouses by which consumers navigate. The ability to predict an experience before we have it is the purpose of a brand. We know it will be thoughtfully designed and reliable if it’s a Toyota, that it will be exhilarating if it’s a BMW, but if it’s a Chrysler, what does that really mean?

Detroit’s willing disregard of the most basic tenants of branding coupled with a lack of focus on anticipating and delivering against consumer needs has contributed to the colossal collapse of the industry.

In preparing for my radio debut, I reached out to NYU professor, Robert Salomon, who pointed out two major gaffs by the Big Three; Detroit has over done it with production that exceeds demand and they've created a complex web of far too many brands. BMW has the 3, 5, and 7 series. Can you name all the Chrysler or GM brands off the top of your head? Either company could cut the number of brands it offers by half, increase efficiencies, and boost customer awarness and affinity.

Beyond creating far too many options for consumers (creating a paradox of choice), the Big Three churn through brands at a rapid rate and retire brands for reasons that are hard to fathom. The Ford Taurus was a hit in 1996 and instead of investing in a process of continual innovation, Ford discontinued it in 2006. Chrysler introduced the popular Neon in 1995 to great fanfare as articles in business publications hailed that Detroit had finally made a great small car. Unfortunately, it was discontinued in 2005. Contrast that with the Honda Civic which was introduced in 1972 and has been continuously made since then, or the Toyota Corolla which has been continuously made since 1968 and improved for 40 years.

Kelly O'Keefe, brand guru, VCU Brandcenter faculty member, and Detroit native points out, "It’s hard to be loyal to a brand when they keep taking away your favorite vehicle. The constant juggling looks like chaos to the consumer, but there’s another problem with it. It becomes a distraction from refinement. We all know that innovation is seasoned over time. History often forgets that innovations like the iPod took years to perfect and gain widespread adoption. Foreign car makers stick with their brands and improve them, year in and year out. They keep it simple and they keep getting better. By churning brands so frequently, Detroit doesn’t leave themselves the time to get it right."

After I left the studio, I thought about the most basic principles of branding that the American car companies could observe in order to get things back on track.

Branding and the Big Three: 7 Steps to Brand Recovery

1. Nothing kills a great brand faster than a bad product. Or, as my friend Kelly Hoey likes to say, "you can’t polish dirt!" There is no amount of advertising or promotion that will cultivate consumer trust and loyalty if the product doesn’t deliver.

2. Great brands know themselves and act with unwavering consistency. Nike stands for one thing – authentic athletic performance. We see this in every product they make, every ad they run and everything they do. As a result, we trust them.

3. Brands that lead with behavior and not rhetoric win. While Ford talked about “Quality is job 1,” Honda delivered a quality product every day, and has for over 30 years.

4. Anticipating consumer needs leads to game changing innovation and marketplace advantage. Tide is over 60-years old and remains one of the fastest growing brands in the P&G portfolio. Their growth, leadership and profitability are attributable to a clear understanding of the customer, a desire to make life better, and a committed focus on continuous innovation.

5. Satisfying a customer means not only meeting their needs but satisfying desires. Whole Foods turned grocery shopping into high art and capitalized on a wave of foodie obsession.

6. Brands that cultivate a sense of belonging create emotional bonds with consumers that are almost impossible to break. Apple told us that they were for the crazy ones, those who dare to think different and in the process, change the world. Who, among the rapidly growing creative class, would not want to consider themselves among the crazy likes of Gandhi, Picasso or Amelia Earhart?

7. Great brands inspire evangelism. Ikea, Mini and Google enjoy profound mind- and market-share with astoundingly small advertising budgets.

Branding Joe the Plumber

In catching up on some reading today I came across an article in AdAge about at team at Ketchum who were doing some fast thinking. While watching the last presidential debate, they began to twitch and twitter each time Mr. McCain invoked the now famous Joe. It just so happens that Ketchum works with Roto Rooter, and the gang running the "Disruptive Media Team" couldn't help but think Joe might just be a creative and disruptive branding tool. Despite their efforts, their Roto Rooter client wasn't quite sure the Joe story would stick. And it didn't help that Joe is not actually a certified plumber.

All this got me to thinking - have we (in the marketing and communications business) gone to far? Is any citizen with a yen to get politically involved a target for branding? Joe shows up at a rally and has a heart-to-heart with a political candidate. That gets exploited for political gain in ways Joe probably never imagined. And before you can warn the guy to duck - the brands come a calling.

I'm all for opportunistic communications, and smart brands immerse themselves in culture and current events - but in this case something is just not right. I can't quite put my finger on it - but it just feels like Ketchum was trying to push this one too far.

What do you think?

Musical Road Lancaster,CA

VSL brought my attention to this fantastic branded utility that is now gone. My favorite part of this video is the driver and passenger response not only to the "utility" but also the sponsoring brand. Way to go Honda!

The Santa Monica ad agency RPA cut half-inch grooves into a quarter-mile stretch of Avenue K, in the exurban L.A. desert city of Lancaster. The grooves were synched in such a way that driving over them at precisely 55mph caused Rossini’s “William Tell Overture” — a.k.a. the Lone Ranger theme — to echo in the air around you. Well, not so fast, Kemosabe! Avenue K borders a quiet subdivision, the RPA failed to take variables such as tire pressure into account, and the Civic ad became a civic nuisance. The road has already been repaved, but YouTube is loaded with clips of drivers getting their grooves on.

Use and Reuse

Via PSFK and Dinosaurs and Robots

In 1963 Heineken introduced a beer bottle brick. Called the World Bottle this ingenious design helped solve the problem of refuse and broken glass littering the beaches of the Caribbean coupled with the problem many islands face, a lack of affordable building materials. Wish they'd bring this back!

Anticipatory Customer Service and Brand Love

Several years ago I chose Geico because I had heard that they were a low cost, easy-to-access provider of auto insurance. I liked that I could do business with them on the Web too.

And now, with this anticipatory customer service email, along with a cute gecko and a CEO named Nicely, Geico has turned from an insurance company that I do business with into a brand I love.


Take note Jet Blue ($7 for a pillow and blankee?!) - a brand I loved which has turned into a company that I'm not sure I want to do business with.

Responsible Retail, Irresponsible Congress

Will this administration's ties to big oil actually halt progress being made by retailers who aim to to reduce their carbon foot print? Hard to believe but, the answer to this question just might be yes if Congress doesn't renew a corporate tax incentive for solar panel projects which will expire on December 31st of this year.

In a post this morning from Cool News/Reveries referencing Stephanie Rosenbloom's article in the New York Times (8/11/08), if Wal-Mart took solar to bright, and installed them in every Sam's Club and Wal-Mart store, "the resulting solar acreage would roughly equal the size of Manhattan, an island of 23 square miles." So far, Wal-Mart has installed solar panels in 17 of its stores and distribution centers and plans for five more are underway.

Here's the problem. Congress, having tied itself in a knot over the issue of offshore oil drilling, has failed to renew the corporate tax incentive for solar panel projects. That means retailers with the best environmental intentions, Wal-Mart included, will get a tax credit for solar projects only if they are completed by December 31st. Safeway's vp of energy operations, George Waidelich, says that's a problem, because nobody wants to risk missing the deadline. "You're talking about millions of dollars," he says.

Big plans are underway from big retail to go solar. Kohl's is installing solar panels in 85 stores, Macy's plans to have installed in 40 store's by year's end, and Safeway is going solar in 23 stores. That said, a kilowatt hour of solar power costs 25-30 cents, versus six cents for coal and nine cents for natural gas. Add to that the cost of installing a solar power system at "$4 million to $6 million for a store the size of a Wal-Mart."

Along with savings from a tax incentive, retailers are banking on a pay out, not only in dollars and cents over time, but also in a boost to their image. We all know that Wal-Mart hopes that their environmental strides will offset the bad press they get for their bad behavior on the human rights front. Analyst Bernard Sosnick, "who has examined Wal-Mart's plans, said the day might come when people can pull their electric cars up to a store and re-charge them with power from the roof or even from wind turbines in the parking lot." Now if only Wal-Mart would pay their employees enough to afford the electric cars...

Time to write your congress person!

Brand Immersion: Fit Flopped

Heed the warnings? Who me? Come on.

I’m in shape.

Well at least my legs have always been in shape.

That’s what I thought when I got my new shoes home and ripped off the tags, cavalierly discarding them without paying any notice to the yellow one with the ominous black stripes and the word WARNING in bold caps.

Photo courtesy of www.cozyradio.com

Once I donned my Fit Flops, my feet started singing. Really. Well I mean if feet could sing that is. Mine were not just humming a little ditty. It was a full blown Hallelujah chorus.

So, after putting them on, I didn’t take them off for two weeks (except to sleep, and that was with some reluctance).

And then, it started. A nagging little pain in my lower back. But of course, I blamed that on Lisa D’s too soft bed at the Vineyard. I figured the pain would go away. But the nagging moved up to whining and I could no longer blame it on Lisa’s generosity, so I honed in on to the crap desk chair I sit in all day. After bending over and wincing in pain, I changed the chair but things continued to worsen। It finally dawned on me that somewhere I saw something about not overdoing it with the shoes.

So I went online and searched “lower back pain”+”Fit Flops”. And of course I found it. Fit Flops CURE lower back pain. So I read on about how, within the soft and supple soles that nurtured the soles (and the souls) of my feet, there is a wobble board designed to make the muscles in the buttocks twitch and work hard to produce the rock hard results we so desire.

I was twitching and twitching and my buttocks finally seized up like a block of concrete – taking my lower back with it.

How do I know all this?

With great reluctance, I left my sole caressing Fit Flops at home and have spent the last two days in my not so hip Birkenstocks.

My back is making a remarkably fast recovery but my feet are in mourning.

Never has there been as comfortable a shoe as my Fit Flops. But because I abused the privilege, and because I also value walking upright and sitting in a chair, I’m afraid the Flops of Fitness must be retired for the season. I’ll try again next spring – in moderation.

UPDATE 8Jul: The pain in my back actually got worse and worse. It wasn't my back - it was my sacroiliac - that spot where the thigh bone connects into the hip socket. It became totally inflamed and caused spasms to the lower back. After a week of prescription strength analgesics to control pain, added to a muscle relaxer to control back spasms, I'm starting to feel just plain sore. So go-ahead, commute in your Fit Flops - but heed the warnings. These little wobblers pack a might mean punch.

UPDATE 24Aug: The saga continues. I continued to have pain in my hip so I went to an orthopedist. A nerve test and MRI confirmed a herniated disk in L5. I went on two courses of steroid treatments to reduce the swelling in the disk. After the second course of steroids I saw steady improvement for 3 weeks. Then, while walking on the beach I got a back spasm and terrible pains in my leg - like all my muscles shrank instantaneously. This was paired with really severe pain in my heel and arch. I'll be starting physical therapy this week and will likely get an epidural to once again attempt to reduce the swelling in my disk. Trust me ladies, just say no to Fit Flops!

Brand Immersion: Nike Foundation Girl Effect

Nike Foundations asks for your support to help change a girl's life and, in the process, change the world. Compelling work from Wieden+Kennedy.

Brand Immersion: Particle Theory

I've been watching Ted Talks lately and am fascinated by the discussions of particles and particle theory. Tonight I heard Amy Tan speak about particles of truth and Brian Greene speak about particles (vibrating strings) that make up the universe - possibly the universal theory.

So I started thinking about universal theory and have begun trying to apply it to the idea of content and its relationship to the brands that sponsor it (advertising). This got me to thinking about the value of media, media properties, and massively distributed content. I've written a little bit about this in a few blog posts and in comments on other blogs including Jeff Jarvis' Buzz Machine.

Jeff recently wrote, "...I think newsrooms will need to be organized around topics or tags or stories because the notion of a section is as out of date as the Dewey Decimal System (hat tip to David Weinberger). Stories and topics become molecules that attract atoms: reporters, editors, witnesses, archives, commenters, and so on, all adding different elements to a greater understanding. Who brings that together? It’s not always the reporter or editor anymore. It can just as easily be the reader(s) now."

To which I responded, "...your observations of the press-sphere should also be a wake-up call to the publishing side of the business who have not yet embraced the vast opportunity associated with “particle theory”. When publishers realize that they are not selling “the page,” “the book,” or “the Web site” but the particles of content themselves, it will become clear that returning to profitability depends on their ability to create systems, processes and selling techniques that match advertiser supported revenue streams to content particles and not necessarily to the curated, branded environment [of a media property]. In this new model that fully embraces massively distributed content everyone wins. Advertisers associate their messages and brands with content that is most relevant; consumers encounter brands in context with content; creators (publishers) monetize not only their own distribution network, but the organic distribution network (long tail) of the content eco-system; and the long tail of distributors (the eco-system) gain some shared financial benefit for propelling the content particles to a broader audience."

As I think about this further, it seems that massively distributed content involves the breaking apart of media as we've traditionally viewed it. Instead of only monetizing blocks of content (media properties) where that content may be valuable for a fleeting time to the few who visit that place, value can be created or extended as the content breaks away from its bounded space. As content becomes an individual particle it can travel to, and live in many places. It can travel with bits of extremely relevant branding, advertising or sponsorship. Or it can attach to new places that have branding, advertising or sponsorship most relevant the fans of the new place.


To determine the value of content particles, I've started to line up a series of assumptions:

1. Content particles may extend active life (engagement or consumption) for longer periods of time.
2. Content particles reach more people over time.
3. Content particles ultimately reach more highly targeted audiences.

I'll be refining this theory over time as I continue to explore ways in which I consume content, desire to consume content, use content in my forays into the social Web, and observe my friends do the same.

What do you think?

Brand Immersion: Do and Do Some More

This gem from Wieden Kennedy London for Honda makes me proud to be a Honda owner. Its sweet, straightforward, inspiring and makes you think about Honda as a neighbor, a friend, and an instigator that you want to hang out with. Bravo to Tony, Kim and the gang in London for continuing the good work they started with Honda Grrrrr.

Brand Immersion: The Life of a Freelance Consultant

Thanks Linda Ziskind for uncovering this gem!

Brand Immersion: Bringing Ideas to Fruition

My friend Tamara Giltsoff from OzoLab passed on her copy of The Next Issue to me the other day. In it I found this short, rather poetic piece from Malcolm Poynton to be quite inspired...

Lost and Found
Challenges bringing ideas to fruition in a rapidly changing and unpredictable environment include: finding people naive enough not be be afraid; finding others experienced enough not to screw it up; finding people who know what questions to ask; finding others who know what questions not to answer; finding time offline to think; finding time online to explore; finding constants in an ever-changing space; finding ways to change the constants; finding open-minded clients; and finding ways to open clients' minds then, having found enough to make progress, remembering to ensure that everyone gets lost in the infinite fun of this golden age."

Brand Immersion: Tivo your YouTube

Reuters reported, on 12March that the lines between television and the computer continue to blur as TiVo engages in a partnership with YouTube to deliver Web videos directly to people's TVs.

I can't quite get my head around exactly how this will work yet, or what the revenue model will be. But I know that there are YouTube videos I'm excited to watch and share on a bigger screen.

What truly excites me about this partnership, however, is the recognition by both YouTube and Tivo of their primary mission as information distributors - without boundaries.

Brands that recognize the power of massively distributed content, beyond their traditional boundaries, will reap great rewards. More specifically, attaching revenue directly to content (particles), not only to a Web site or magazine (place), dramatically expands revenue potential. Good content particles become massively distributed and consumed, and the revenue associated with this content particle increases in tandem. Advertisers and sponsors are able to pick and choose their content particles to create more relevant associations between their brand and their message and the content itself. It winds up being a winning formula for the publisher, distributor, advertiser and consumer. And that's just plain good business.

Brand Immersion: A Wish for World Peace

In December I first wrote about Pangea Day and shared their call to action - make a film that can change the world.

The thesis: What if everyone in the world watched the same film at the same time? How would it transform us? How would it unite us?

Now, in a mere 36 days, we'll see the fruits of that labor. On May 10, 2008, at 6:00 PM GMT (2:00pm EST) millions of people from all over the world will come together to share a program of short films, talks and music, broadcast on TV, the web and mobile phones around the world.

People all around the world are becoming Friends of Pangea Day, hosting large and small viewing parties to share this four-hour program of films from around the globe. You can be part of it.

Attend an event in your neighborhood or create and host your own event.

Pangea Day was conceived by Jahane Noujaim, a visionary documentary film maker (Control Room and StartUp.com). It is the result of Jahane's Ted Prize winning wish for world peace.

Brand Immersion: Welcome to the social

| View | Upload your own

From: akispicer, 1 week ago

Just caught up with Paul Isakson's Blog and found this fantastic primer on current trends in social networking. This SlideShare from Fallon planner, Aki Spicer, covers his thoughts on 10 Trends Marketers Should Know About Social Networking. It was delivered at the agency's Brainfood lunch and was broadcast live across several social media platforms so that anyone could watch if they were so inclined.

If you've got comments or thoughts, be sure to leave them for Aki over on the SlideShare or on the Fallon Planning blog post.

Brand Immersion: PSFK Conference Notes

PSFK Notes
Grant McCracken and Allan Chochinov were the highlights for me at the recent PSFK conference. Here's a copy of my notes and following these - check out the video highlights.

| View | Upload your own

SlideShare Link

McCracken's notions of moving beyond "noticing as a brute activity" are a challenge to all who blog. While I couldn't find a piece of video to illuminate that point, I was able to locate the piece of his presentation that posited the notion of goods and services no longer being about indulging consumers - but enabling them.




Chochinov's inspiration - impact eco-systems of behavior, culture and environment. He got his point across by sharing with us an assignment he gives his design students - make a better pooper scooper. Here he wraps up his theory. It's all about sh*t...

Earth Hour 2008

8pm today - take action. Turn off for one hour.

Brand Immersion: The secret to success

Paul Isakson of space150 in Minneapolis shares his compelling, simple, and elegant thesis on advertising, branding and innovation. The formula for success in any or all of these disciplines is simple... make people's lives better.

| View | Upload your own