Over the past month ‘Mo Bros’ around the world have been growing facial hair to support men’s health while raising awareness of prostate cancer and depression.

Since its humble beginnings in 2004, when only 262 Mo Bros’ registered, the annual Movember campaign has been a huge success raising over AUS$60 million globally.
This year more corporate sponsors have got in on the act with Heinz’s ‘The Big Red Movember’ tomato sauce, Krispy Kreme’s ‘Moughnut’ and Grill’d Burgers who helped
feed those hungry Mo-growers for free.

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100% Barcelona
Recently I spent a week in Barcelona attending a learning university with a few hundred of the worlds most exciting entrepreneurs. The event was held at a spectacular, but typical business-style hotel in the Port District. The day the event finished, I switched hotels as I was keen to immerse myself in a richer vein of the Barcelona experience. And where better to stay in order to do that than Casa Camper.

I have to admit from the outset that I’m a brandaholic. I’m addicted to brands with soul, authenticity and rich, unique personality (sounds like it could be a description of Barcelona itself). I’ve been a Camper fan for some years. Camper make shoes, but they’re not just another shoe company. Camper fuses design, materials and marketing to create a brand story that is movingly summed up by two of their mantra-like positioning lines: ‘The Walking Society’ and ‘Imagination Walks.’

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I got home one evening recently and I had 4 envelopes in the post box. They were all pretty much the same size, but there the similarities ended.

The first envelope was plain, brown and unaddressed, except for the ominous warning ‘To the Home Owner’. The second was a plain white window envelope addressed to me. The third had the brand mark of my mobile phone provider and the fourth the logo of the travel agent we went on holiday with six months ago and carried a message ‘Exclusive offers and packages for our VIP customers’.

So I took out my ’stethoscope’ and  listened for a brand heart beat from each envelope.

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The Michelin Man – Sumo or brand icon
Just recently the Truly Deeply studio invested in some more character (not that we don’t have enough already) for the space we spend more than 9 hours a day in. We purchased an original statue reproduction of Michelin Man,  that used to be attached to a compressor. To be honest at first I thought the statue was ugly, but there was something in the way the icon stood with such confidence and conviction that grabbed me. It felt like we had a new member joining the Truly Deeply family. My thoughts were summed up by Pete, a Brand Scientist, who sits next to me at work;

“It may look like a sumo wrestler, but its a brand logo that has stood the test of time”.

Pete’s words stuck with me and I found myself asking, what is it in Michelin’s history that has allowed the Michelin Man brandmark to be so enduring? History is not my strong suit, but I was sufficiently stimulated to do a little digging.

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Daniel Goleman’s new book Ecological Intelligence
tackles the task of providing consumers with a simple but comprehensive process for understanding the environmental and social impacts of the goods we consume. He advocates ‘radical transparency’. A system whereby all the right technical boffins are harnessed to rate the environmental and social impact of a product at every stage of its life from raw materials to waste disposal. Once rated, product packaging can carry a relevant rating device communicating to the world its virtues or otherwise. In addition web sites like www.goodguide.com will play a critical role in communicating to consumers the merits of one product compared with another.

Goleman makes the assumption that once informed consumers will make purchase decisions that are in this planet and society’s best interests. Unfortunately, this where things get a little more complicated (yes even more complicated than actually rating all the products and services). Just about every category that we get to work in on in a branding sense we encounter the same feedback – consumers are interested in environmental issues, but for the majority only if it does not cost them in some way. Give me more environmentally friendly housing options, but don’t charge me more. Give me a more environmentally friendly car, but please don’t make it look daggy or reduce its performance. In consumer land best interests so often boil down to self interest. In a marketing sense it is important that brand custodians understand the environmental band width of their customers, as for many it is very very narrow. It is gradually widening but it is a slow journey.

In B2B markets there is a more urgent push. Business self interest is starting to play out with the growing focus on carbon emissions. Some of the heavy weights like Wal-Mart are also pursuing a stronger environmental pathway, stating in July this year that it wished to create environmental ratings for everything it sells. However, if they have success in introducing their own rating system we run the risk of multiple rating systems and a diluted consumer outcome in terms of understanding and buy-in.

Certainly Daniel Goleman had a best seller and a winning concept with his book on Emotional Intelligence. However, it is also a great example of ‘self interest’ at play. How does one get on in this relationship driven world….yes some degree of emotional intelligence helps. Take two tablets a day (just kidding)! But ecological intelligence that may take a little longer to have its moment in the sun, certainly from a consumer perspective.

Pete

On a recent trip to NYC I came across a guy who had decided that instead of begging for small change that he would be better off delivering customer value. For an investment of one dollar you had some one you could curse, someone devoted to your every desire to get what ever you needed of your chest. And if you were feeling particularly angry with the world, you could invest $50 and have the privilege of kicking this guy in the nuts, and he promised not to kick back. It was a very interesting value proposition, but what appealed to me most was the fact hat he actually had a value proposition, he had put a dollar figure to it and he had developed a communication strategy with his signs to communicate it.

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The brands we choose reflect how we see ourselves
Each day we make thousands of conscious and sub-concussion decisions about the brands we wish to include in our lives. Our choice of which brands we choose to connect-with is often a reflection of how we see ourselves and how we wish the world to see us. Some of these brand associates are more overt than others, but when mapped as a whole they create a sense of personal brand identity. ‘Brand Mapping’ as we call it forms part of the Insights process we use on our commercial projects. Brand mapping helps us to immerse our thinking into the lives of target markets our clients’ brands wish to connect with truly and deeply.

Here’s my brand map for Monday 03 August. Try creating your own brand map, or have some of your closest clients and customers track theirs – the results are guaranteed to be interesting. Send us your maps, we’d love to see them too.

Dave.

Brand Map 03 August 2009