Luxury brands get the basics right

When I moved from PR to Marketing eight years ago, my PR agency gave me a Mont Blanc pen as a farewell and good luck gift.  I've treasured it ever since and, amazingly, haven't lost it.  But it couldn't survive a run-in with my 18-month-old cavalier King Charles spaniel, who chewed a generous splinter out of the top half.

I was devastated.  Doubly so when I saw the price of new ones.  Could it be repaired for less?  I popped in to the Mont Blanc store at the Royal Exchange yesterday and, sure enough, the outer casings are replaceable parts.  I could get a new top for £65, replaced while I waited.  When he emerged from the repair, the Mont Blanc rep announced that once he'd swapped the top, the bottom looked noticeably different.  So he changed both for the same price.  Giving me, essentially, a whole new pen for £65.
The price we pay for luxury brands is extraordinary, but they do three things to justify it.  Things we could all learn from, as they remind us what's at the heart of a strong brand.

ONE:  Customer Service.  I've paid the price, now treat me like it.  Replacements, cheap or free repairs, rolling out the red carpet in the shop. These little things keep me a customer, and are generally insignificant costs within the huge margins of the brands.

TWO:  Quality.  With a few trendy exceptions, luxury brands start with exceptional quality.  I have a Coach handbag that's passed its 20-year mark despite terrible beatings.  My first pair of Ferragamo's classic bow pumps were my lead office shoes for 12 years (and many re-soles) before I decided the uppers were looking tired.  Unsurprisingly, I bought a new pair ... for significantly more than I paid for their predecessors!  Quality like this is expensive, but when it's tangibly better than the other options and lasts many times longer, you amortise the investment.

THREE: Club Spirit.  In an extension of customer service, most luxury brands try to create an exclusive, clubby feeling amongst their customers.  Berry Brothers invites us to regulars-only tastings at their nearby corporate offices.  Riverford Organic Veg, who deliver weekly, gives us extra treats on milestone deliveries and invites us to dinners for long-standing customers.  Nespresso's Club is often profiled in marketing magazines; they're masters of making us believe we're part of a special group, even though they're just flogging coffee capsules and there are no doubt millions of us on the list.  All of these brands get added loyalty from me because they've made our relationship a two-way one.  I feel a part of their brand experience, thus I almost feel I'm cheating if I shop elsewhere.

There's no reason we can't incorporate these basic lessons into the less glamorous world of B2B marking.  Why don't more of us do so?

Secrets of a great trade show

It's the first year in more than a decade that I'm not gearing up for the Gartner Symposium in Barcelona.  In my last role, this was one of biggest trade shows of the year and one of my single largest marketing expenditures.

With the perspective of hindsight, and the new luxury of being a disinterested observer, I can ponder: How did we get best value for money? In a nutshell, it's about building a package of content and interaction so that the face-to-face shows are merely the climax in a relationship with a long prologue and an equally lengthy denouement.  With an end result, of course, of sales.

Here are the three biggest priorities to make that happen.

ONE:  Consistent, great content.  Start with a theme and build out from it.  Last year, we began with the future of the office.  Teaser articles, surveys and blogs in the buildup.  A major new white paper and a variety of presentations at the shows, all mapping back to our paper.  We blogged and tweeted live from the shows.  In our white paper, we'd introduced the idea that all executives would need to take on five new roles to survive in the digital age.  Our show follow-up was a self-diagnostic quiz so they could rate how well they perform those roles now.  We continued the topic on our corporate blogs and social media, and armed sales people with content and discussion guides to carry on the conversation in the more intimate setting of their client meetings.  Once upon a time, we'd do a single white paper and a single show.  Now, people realise a package of great content can keep a story going for six months or more.  Which justifies that anchoring trade show investment.

TWO:  Trained staff.  Provide in-depth briefings, complete with messaging and clear descriptions of their role, to everyone who's even mildly involved.  Gather the booth team together at the start of every show to reinforce what you need them to do, and to build their enthusiasm.  Give private coaching to any exec with a speaking role.  But it's not just the people on the ground.  We tipped off our network of bloggers on how to link to our show topics.  We briefed the sales people who weren't there on what the people coming by the booths would have seen, and helped them understand how to build on what their customers would have experienced.  For a good white paper to capture customer interest, the sales links and product/service pushes need to be subtle.  Sales often doesn't have time for subtlety.  I've learned that you need to be very specific pointing out just how they can move from discussing Topic A to selling Product B.

THREE:  Follow up.  Uniting both elements above, you need to combine salient follow-up material with a sales force trained to use it.  Trade show appearances open a door and build goodwill for a short period of time.  If you don't get in there and take the next step, the benefit fades quickly.

I concentrated on one set of shows and did them every year, which gave me the opportunity to turn what I did into a well-honed machine.  But remember, it's a machine that depends entirely on the content at its heart.

Three ways to instantly improve your web site

Now that I'm in job hunting mode, I'm spending a fair bit of time on corporate web sites.  Few are giving me what I need.  Most are slickly designed, and it won't take me long to tell you a lot about their current marketing campaign.

But try to find basic information about the company and you may be up a communications creek without a paddle.  More than half the time, I've found myself defaulting to Wikipedia, where the company page has been far more useful.  Dangerous, of course, because that's a crowd-sourced document out of marketers' control.

It wouldn't be hard for most companies to instantly fix this issue.

ONE. Be obvious "About Us".  This is accepted terminology; don't get creative.  Get this label in an obvious place, at home page level or one click below, and link all your company overview material to this spot.  Don't be clever and differentiate with artistic headlines.  Don't hide it because you assume visitors already know about you.  This is the most basic type of information that any job hunter, investor, journalist … and most prospective customers … will look for.  Who ARE you?  Yet the number of companies who bury these basics, or don't have them at all, is shocking.

TWO.  Think like a journalist, not a salesman.  Often, when I get to the corporate overviews, they're written as an extension of current marketing spin rather than the pragmatic details I need.  Anyone seeking a basic overview is going to be looking for details like ownership, size, locations, history, share listings and prices, etc.  Most Wikipedia entries are actually brilliant at this, because they've grown out of the needs of people looking for the basics.  If you have a Wikipedia entry, look there and reverse-engineer to your website.  Test it on someone who knows nothing about your company or your industry.  (Mothers tend to be excellent for this!)

THREE.  Keep the language simple.  Once again, following a basic journalistic model here saves everyone time, and gets your facts across.  I've been shocked by the amount of corporate jargon, passive voice and lightweight marketing spin I've encountered in an area that should be a basic factual report.  Once again, driving me to Wikipedia for something in clear English.  Keep it simple, direct, fact-filled and lively to keep readers on a page you control.

Kudos to Vodafone (screen grab shown above), who's offered the best practice model of all the sites I've skimmed in the past fortnight.  I won't name and shame the worst.  Sadly, there are too many of them.

Now is the time for HSBC to invest in internal comms

So, HSBC will rename and re-brand its High Street presence in the UK.  A bunch of branding consultants, designers and advertising agencies are going to have a very good couple of years.  I wonder if the internal communications people will do as well?  I hope so, but I fear not.

Common sense says that employee comms should be the last thing you cut in times of dramatic change.  Sadly, it's often seen as a "soft" discipline and easily jettisoned when a company needs to downsize.  And HSBC's stated 8,000 UK jobs ... about 10% of its workforce ... is a big cut.  I've experienced this cutting off of the nose to spite the corporate face too often, most memorably as part of slashes to Worldcom's employee-facing programmes within a fortnight of its CEO being indicted for fraud.  If ever a company needed strategic internal communications, that was the time.

Will HSBC be smart enough to invest in all of its comms people, and not just the external ones, at this time when they can do the most good?  I hope so.  Those I know are excellent practitioners.  Here's what a top internal comms team can do at a time like this.

ONE:  Keep morale up, and people working.  Major redundancy programmes are one of the most toxic things you can throw at big corporate productivity.  They usually take ages to complete and proceed in a cloud of secrecy, causing employees to spend more time worrying about their jobs than what they need to do to help.  It doesn't have to be this way.  Internal comms strategists involved at board level can shape messages that resonate with the employees ... both those leaving, and those who remain.  They can shift the focus from bitterness and rancour towards executives to understanding and a battle mentality.  The enemy, after all, is never the execs making the cuts.  Its market forces and competition.  When communication works, the people who leave understand why they had to go, and the people who stay have a renewed commitment to fight for the future of their company.  And their jobs.  The difference in productivity is vast.

TWO:  Coach and support line managers.  Fight or flight instinct usually kicks in when we have to make people redundant.  It's the worst task most managers will ever undertake, and few are emotionally prepared or naturally skilled enough at communications to do it well.  The fighters get combative and cast blame, the fliers are brusque and quick.  (Layoff by e-mail, anyone?)  Neither is appropriate.  Line managers making redundancies have to communicate a strong message clearly and sensitively, take plenty of time to listen, and be ready to provide emotional support if it's needed.  Then they need to emerge to rally the survivors.  A strong internal comms team will provide the message packs, presentation materials and support documents to help them.  At the best company I've worked with in this area, we led coaching sessions and took the part of the redundant employees in role playing so managers had some practice before they went into the tough meetings.

THREE:  Sanity-check external messages.  People forget this one too often, keeping internal comms teams in their own little silo as marketing and PR handle the external stuff.  But the employee comms people can be better than either of those groups at making sure sensitive messages are credible and compelling.  The best of them play an almost ambassadorial role, occupying a relatively neutral ground between management and employees.  They have to understand and be able to speak for either side to create the communications that work for both.  With the freedom to speak the truth, they can bring the tough criticism of the front lines to bear.  If crisis messaging resonates with the workforce, it's usually credible with other audiences.

I admit a personal involvement here ... I'm an HSBC Premier customer.  After frustrating exepriences with other banks in both the United States and England, they were the best I've found.  In five years, I've never had cause to complain, and every interaction has been helpful.  I hope for my sake, and for all the employees who've helped me over the years, that the company manages this well.

Three warning signs that a corporation's comms will never be strategic

Over the years, I've seen many communicators unjustly criticised for not being strategic.  The majority of the time, they're forced into the tactical by the organisations and the executives they serve.  Nobody wants to get stuck in that situation, yet too many of us wake up there once we get to know the organisations we've joined.

Here are the top warning signs.

ONE:  Executives don't take our contribution seriously.  Oh, they may pay it lip service.  They may even throw big budgets your way.  But these dangerous execs don't truly see communications as a strategic contributor to business success.  This can be hard to spot from outside a company, so getting the scoop from current team members is essential.  Typical signs of trouble are:  senior marketing/communications execs with no actual experience in the field (often a top sales person who fancies events, or a biddable yes woman who'll put individual demands over the good of the company); expensive vanity projects chosen for their fit with executives rather than their relevance to customers; executives who demand content, events and campaigns without contributing any strategic input of their own; a majority of young or under-skilled team members (these execs prefer comms teams who don't have the experience or bravery to challenge them).

TWO:  Poor plans.  Back in my EDS days, things ran like clockwork.  The senior execs created a clear business plan with the overall strategy and the specific business goals for the year.  Marketing built a similarly direct plan on top of that.  The communications disciplines then fleshed it out.  At the time, I didn't realise how rare that was.  Ask a room of corporate communications heads if they have an annual plan they're proud of, and most will sheepishly admit they don't.  Often, it starts with the lack of the business plan at the very top.  It may not exist, it may be too high-level to develop specific plans beneath or ... sadly typical in really large corporations ... it may be so vast and complicated it's not a plan at all, but a long list of random, unconnected desires.  In each case, it's almost impossible to build a good marketing plan below.  You'll get something that shares the same issues, and the problems will cascade down.  It's perfectly acceptable to ask about plans when you're interviewing for a job.  If the discussion gets nebulous fast, beware.

THREE:  Bad measurement.  Measurement is the holy grail of marketing communications.  Everyone talks about it; few do it well.  In general, the more problems a corporate communications team has with measuring its work, the bigger a sign that the function isn't tied in to the company's strategy.  Problems typically take three forms.  Most often, lack of decent plans means measurement is deployed ad hoc on stand-alone projects.  There's no big picture, no movement against a benchmark, because the company doesn't follow one strategy long enough to allow it.  More dangerous are the magnificent measurement cons that spin out reams of beautiful charts and graphs, with lines going ever upward and to the right ... but the success of the marketing programmes aren't matching the business performance.  I've seen marketing teams hire spreadsheet wizards purely to invent the measurement myths that make them look good.  This works in the short term but, as marketing disconnects ever further from business performance, will always end in disaster.  Which generally takes us right back to point No. 1, where some senior execs are demanding non-strategic marketing activities that pump their egos, but not the bottom line.

It's likely that you'll find elements of all these problems in any big corporation.  Most season
ed corporate communications professionals have spent their careers trying to solve these problems.  But they are red flags.  And if you see too many of them in the same place, you may want to re-evaluate whether you want to work for the company.  Because with too many of these flags flying, you'll never be able to make a truly strategic impact.  And that's no fun.

Richard III sends communications lessons from the grave

The UK ... and much of the rest of the world ... was gripped last week by the re-internment of King Richard III.  After more than 500 years of ignominy the tide has turned.  It seems we all got the story wrong.  The legendary villain was, in fact, a decent guy who probably got on the wrong side of one of the most effective PR machines in history.

There's nothing new about usurpers using communications to consolidate their new administrations, whether it's medieval kings or a board running a modern takeover.  What lessons in communications strategy can we learn from the Tudors' alleged blackwashing of their predecessor?

ONE. Take control of communications.  Maligned by critics as a boring paper pusher, Henry VII was smart enough to understand the importance of message control.  He made sure every channel was immediately on side with his story: the noble underdog here to rescue the country from horror with peace, stability and good management.  Anything that interfered with his narrative (like the claimed of one Perkin Warbeck to be one of the lost Princes in the Tower) was quickly and brutally controlled.  Henry's channels were aristocratic gossip, architecture and stately progresses.  These days we look at PR, internal communications and social media.  But the strategy is the same.  Try to gain control with a consistent story that shows positive change, as soon as possible.

TWO. Demonise the enemy.  In just three generations, Tudor messaging transformed Richard into a malformed beast who betrayed his brothers, murdered his nephews, was a sexual predator making moves on his niece and was hated by his supporters.  The past 70 years of scholarship has chipped away at that story, showing a decent and popular king.  But the Tudor's knew that support for one side is more passionate when the other side is a stark, frightening contrast.  In today's politically correct world of incestuous business relationships, where a company may be your partner and competitor at the same time and no individual can afford to burn a bridge, it's hard to create a bad guy to fight against.  But you needn't demonise a company or an individual.  Look to a situation.  Here's what success means, and here's what happens if we don't get it right.  Let the numbers and the consequences speak.  Demonise failure to prompt people to embrace success.

THREE.  Hire the best.  I'm not suggesting that some shadowy Elizabethan PR man gave Shakespeare a brief and paid him to glorify the Tudor regime.  I am, however, celebrating this early example of great content marketing.  Shakespeare did everything right on the storytelling front, giving us a rollicking piece of entertainment that also embedded key messages for generations.  Richard = bad.  Tudor dynasty = good.  Every piece of modern marketing content we create is trying to get key messages across.  Spend the time and get the right people to create things that tell a great story, captivate the audience and entertain.  Yes, entertain.  Your messages might not last for 500 years, but they'll at least stand out from today's crowd.

Unique venues can provide the "something special" that gets execs out of their offices

I discovered a stunning, little-known London event venue last week.  Two Temple Place was William
Waldorf Astor's London headquarters, built with no expenses spared in that lush pastiche of historical architecture the Victorians so adored.  It's located on Victoria Embankment, has views from its main rooms of the Thames between Blackfriars and Waterloo bridges, and ... aside from a brief period each year when it opens its doors for an art exhibit ... it's available only to those associated with the charity that owns it, and those who book it for events.  (For more on the building and the current exhibit, read my alter ego's blog entry here.)

Temple Place reminded me of the wealth of distinctive event venues available in London, and how important they are in getting a corporate executive out of the office.  Let's assume you've taken care of the "table stakes".  You have a fascinating agenda, efficient organisation and flawless event delivery.  Even with all that, it takes something special to get people to commit to you.  Especially the kind of senior people who get a score of invitations a week, and have demanding diaries that make every minute precious.

Unique venues can make a difference, especially when it comes to tempting the palates of people jaded by regular corporate hospitality.  Here are three factors to consider when you want the venue to be part of the draw.  I've written with London in mind, but the key points work anywhere.

ONE.  Play the culture card.  This seems obvious, especially in London.  Yet you'd be surprised at how rare it is, as people still default to sports and dinners at obvious venues.  I've regularly heard attendees express their appreciation for "something different".  A little known but historically significant spot like Two Temple Place is a great example.  I once attended a profitable breakfast meeting on the dramatic gallery hanging between the V&A's plaster cast halls before a pre-opening tour of an exhibit that had sold out to the general public.  The great hall of the Royal Courts of Justice got me to an event I wasn't much interested in, to see a building I had little chance of getting in otherwise. Just about every cultural organisation is supplementing tight budgets with hiring out their venues for special events. Figure out what appeals to your target market, and start asking around.

TWO.  Rooms with a view.  London is an unusually low-rise city for a global capital.  And though that's changing fast, it still means that there are only a handful of places to get a perspective from on high.  For years I was blessed with the BT Tower as a venue; a powerful draw as it's closed to the general public and is the only high spot in that part of town.  (Though access is controlled by BT, if you're a partner business or charity it's worth exploring possibilities.  You'd be surprised by the range of events that take place there.)  The Shard is all the rage now, but I'd put my corporate appeal money on the new Sky Gardens at 20 Fenchurch Street.  And don't forget the endless fascination of the River.  Tate Modern, the Oxo Tower and The Swan Restaurant next to the Globe are all dependable venues that encompass one of the world's great views.

THREE.  Exclusive access.  Any time you can offer people entry to something they'd have little chance of experiencing on their own, you're on to a winner.  If you're going to sponsor sport, don't just do the event.  Include, for example, a behind-the-scenes tour and a meeting with a driver before a race.  Some of the hottest, most impossible-to-book restaurants have private dining or chef's tables ... often easier to book than a regular table.  These are compelling draws for foodies and provide excellent venues for serious conversations.  Most popular art exhibitions organise private viewings for corporate events, giving attendees a chance to contemplate at leisure, with a clear line of sight, what they'd be battling crowds to see as members of the general public.

Combine the three, of course, for a real winner.  One of the best events I ever produced took place in the penthouse at The Dorchester.  With outrageously opulent interiors by famous stage designer Oliver Messel, it's a one-of-a-kind historic setting.  Its balcony gives a rare perspective on Hyde Park, and on a summer's day is like having drinks in the treetops.  And, unless you have the vast wealth of a Russian oligarch or a Saudi prince, your only ticket in here is a corporate event.

Of course, we were also launching a new white paper with some fascinating, fresh research, and had a couple of household names from the London business community to chair our conversation.  No matter how grand, events do not flourish on venue alone.

Whitehall stings provide a crisis communications review

My heart goes out to the PR teams in Westminster who've had a miserable week thanks to Jack Straw and Malcolm Rifkind.  I make no political statements here, I'm only looking at this from a communications point of view.  And I'd bet you a pint or two at one of Parliament's favourite pubs that neither man involved senior PR experts before those "sting" meetings.  If they had, any good PR would have smelled a rat.

Instead, teams in Whitehall would have swung into crisis mode after-the-fact, doing what damage limitation they could.  It's a good prompt to think about dealing with crises because, let's face it … we're all often dropped in the thick of it to clean up problems not of our own making.

My three most critical approaches:

ONE:  Be honest.  Gather facts quickly and lay them out, clearly and concisely, for all to see.  Don't dissemble.  More than ever, you need to be a partner to the journalists as they build their story.  Obviously you want facts and data that bring the story into a positive light for you.  Your crisis communications plan (you have one, right?) should have identified potential problem spots and outlined messages for each.  With that sort of preparation, you can move quickly to get your side of the story out.

TWO:  Be humble.  We see execs making this mistake again and again, whether it's oil industry bosses saying explosions weren't their fault to MPs protesting that their expenses claims were technically legal to Rifkind earning the enmity of anyone in the country earning less than £60k (which is the majority) by implying that's not a sufficient wage.  In each of these cases, the speakers had a valid point.  But they miscalculated the feelings of their audience.  Most people like to see the high and mighty brought down a peg.  But they're also understanding when they see real regret. If you've done wrong, get out there and apologise, sincerely and with humility.

THREE:  Call in favours.  How you're treated in a crisis varies dramatically according to the relationships you've built with the press.  Building good will … through a steady stream of story opportunities, good interviews, the occasional exclusive and a few nights in the pub … is like money in the bank.  You're making deposits against the rainy day when it all goes wrong.  Apple and Microsoft are the classic example of this.  Reporters actually like Apple, so when things go wrong they give the company the benefit of the doubt.  Whereas for years they lambasted Microsoft for every mis-step.  From the mood of the British press this week, I'd guess neither Rifkind or Straw had spent much time cultivating strong relationships with the media.

Nespresso waves the flag for great customer advocacy

We all praise Apple to the heavens for building customer loyalty, and I agree … but I'd put Nespresso forward as my ultimate model.  They've done a magnificent job of getting us to pay well above market prices for a luxury product while building real allegiance.  Most Nespresso customers are solid advocates.

I was absurdly happy this month when the company launched three new decaffeinated options.  

Immediately putting in a large order and, sad consumer that I am, sharing my delight across multiple social media platforms as I sampled my way through my arpeggio, vivalto and volluto decafs.  That's the kind of advocacy we all work for.  

How does Nespresso build it?  I see these as the three keys.

ONE:  Great CRM.  I've marketed customer relationship management systems for years, so I know what they're supposed to do.  But so few people use them to their potential.  I had problems taking advantage of a discount while ordering my new decaf, so decided to call.  A local accent answered on the fifth ring.  The minute Steve had confirmed my identity, he'd accessed my order history, seen that I was a heavy decaf consumer, and launched into a chat about the new range.  He knew who I was, and the information at his fingertips combined with his training to give the appearance of actually caring about me.  Ordering was effortless, and a pleasure.

TWO:  The Club.  So many of us talk about creating an exclusive, "clubby" feel with our customers.  Nespresso sets the benchmark.  Walk into any store, flash your card, have a free coffee.  Get special advance news.  Be invited to market test the new range.  For all I know, this is the least exclusive club in the world and anyone who buys a sleeve of coffee can get in.  I don't care.  I feel a sense of belonging, I feel that my free coffee at the Regent Street store is a marvellous deal (even though it makes hardly a dent in the hefty profit margin they're making out of me) and I love that they're treating me as more than just a customer.

THREE:  Content.  I've spent the past decade immersed in thought leadership and content.  It makes sense when you're selling into the boardroom, but to the average consumer?  Absolutely.  The Nespresso customer magazine features great editorial, clearly targeted at the type of people who pay over the odds for coffee.  Insightful travel articles, style insights, fascinating profiles.  As an iPad app, it's a best practice example of where corporate magazines are going.  This is a model any industry can follow.  Give me content I enjoy and can use … I feel more loyal to your brand.

McClaren shows off the benefits of thinking big

There are few things I find less interesting than cars … even ones that go fast around tracks.  But I have loads of respect for Interbrand as a thought leader on marketing strategy, so when they invited me to one of their "Utopian Nights" chats with a marketing bigwig, I made a point of going.

Even though he was going to talk about cars.

Sure enough, turns out McLaren is about much more, and marketing boss John Allert offered ideas we could take into any industry.  Here are the three that struck me most profoundly.

ONE:  Think sideways.  We're all programmed to go in a straight line.  Build on what we know, and keep making it bigger.  McLaren, which always has a need for vast amounts of cash to develop their cutting edge machines, got creative about that.  They looked at their core skills, saw what was transferrable to other markets, and started transferring.  They're not about cars, it turns out.  They're a cutting-edge engineering company with insightful management.  So now they have sidelines in management consulting and predictive analytics, doing stuff like making toothpaste production plants run better.  A lesson for us all on the possibilities of diversification.

TWO.  Unactivated sponsorships aren't worth having.  McLaren wants to work with smart sponsors, and isn't even interested in people who just want to slap their logo on the car.  Even hospitality packages are on the passé end these days.  True partnerships that last for a long time, build ongoing relationships, combine the expertise of both companies … that's where the value lives.

THREE.  Environment matters.  We'd all accept that our homes are extensions of ourselves.  So why do so few companies treat their offices as extensions of their brand?  McLaren commissioned its justly-famous, Foster-designed headquarters as the physical manifestation of its corporate soul.  High tech and innovative, they pushed the boundaries so far that their own engineers had to design a new system to hang the previously-unmanageable sizes of glass sheets for their vast exterior walls.  The message continues inside, where offices are cleaned four times daily to mimic spotless laboratories, and employees wear uniforms to evoke the dedication and speed of F1 pit crews.

I may not care much for cars, but I like McLaren's business style.  And I love their architecture.