LIVESTRONG: Is this the worst ever brand crash?

A few days ago I asked the question “Can LIVESTRONG survive Armstrong?” in this blog.

I feared not. But it looks like a momentum of destruction is forcing an even faster implosion of the LIVESTRONG brand than I’d imagined.

Charities need support. For support they need money. And none of us hands over money without trust. Trust must be at the very heart of any successful brand. The brand must do the job you hire it for. And charity brands are no different. They must do the job they are supposed to, or you vote with your money and your feet and take your support and donations elsewhere.

1) So the first undoing of a charity brand is when people don’t feel they can trust it.  In this situation, many donations simply shift to another good and more trustworthy cause. For LIVESTRONG, to another cancer fighting charity.

But what about this next event…?

2) The more rapid undoing of a charity brand is when [..]

Can LIVESTRONG survive Armstrong?

Lance Armstrong: Is this the ultimate fall from celebrity grace?

They say, “The bigger they are, the harder they fall.” Well Lance you broke my dream and it looks as if you’re falling pretty hard.

Following 7 Tour de France wins the exaltations were unprecedented. Your feat was super-human. But as it turns out, sadly, the old maxim seems to be holding firm, “If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.” 

But like so many… I wanted to believe. The story was so good it was (ironically) addictive. Inspiring me and so many others. The ultimate fightback from disaster to legendary triumph.

For a long time, I [..]

On 15 October 2012 I was in Barcelona with Peter Wennström co-presenting the latest in the global series of Healthy Marketing Team FourFactors Masterclasses.

This event was organised with Informa as a special pre-conference event to add extra value for the attendees of World Juice 2012 – ‘The world’s #1 Forum for capitalising on the latest product trends, analysing raw material outlooks and doing business.’

With nearly 50 delegates booked this was [..]

Brand Excellence Series: Staropramen - Differentiation through Provenance

This post is part of my series on “Brand Excellence” – learning from the best in class examples so we can reapply what really works.

Have you noticed how certain places are associated with great quality? France in general, and Paris in particular carry an instant association with luxury and high-end goods. Whether we are talking Louis Vuitton luggage or fine fragrance and couture from Chanel, the Paris provenance builds further caché into these super brands.

A more interesting example for me is how we associate the finest chocolate with Switzerland and Belgium, yet neither grow the raw material, cocoa. Their reputation has been built by their chocolatiers and their skills in production and craftsmanship. Italy, likewise is famed for its espresso, yet no coffee beans are grown on its soil. The brand power comes from the expertise and the appeal is strengthened by the expertly crafted and repeatedly told and reinforced story of the location.

Following this theme, I’m impressed with the example of the Staropramen brand, which centres its brand story on its brewing heritage at very heart of the Czech capital, Prague.

Beer, like so many categories has marketers deep in thought (sometimes despair   crying into their pints) as they try to find ways to effectively and ownably differentiate their product from that of their (often very similar) competition.

Yet in this UK press ad, the Staropramen brand makes the task seem simple. They cleverly build on the UK consumer’s idealised view of Prague and use the location in conjunction with the story of their enduring expertise to position an experience in the [..]

Speaking at the Fi Conference: Innovations in Dairy in Amsterdam, July 2012

On 10 July 2012 I was invited as an innovation speaker to present at the Radisson Blu Hotel at the heart of beautiful Amsterdam at the Fi Conference, Innovations in Dairy.

Speaking on how to use consumer insights to improve brands and products, I explained the stages of category development and the importance of timing your innovation with consumer readiness for your new idea.

One of the hardest things for Marketers to achieve is to change someone’s mind. Have you tried changing someone’s mind? A far better, far easier and far more cost effective approach for Marketers is to find an audience who are looking for a story and tell them the story they already believe. That way, when they see your innovation it strikes them with instant appeal as being a solution for their lives that they’ve been looking for all the time!

Instead of resisting your new idea, they are instantly open to its arrival because it comes from their frame of reference and understands their way of seeing the world. In this way, as soon as you know your target, the task of launching and communicating your innovation becomes hugely simplified.

The Radisson Blu Amsterdam - venue for The Fi Innovations in Dairy Conference.

At the Healthy Marketing Team, we use a proprietary innovation model to predict the up-coming opportunities within the categories of food, beverage, ingredients, supplements and personal care. The way we help our clients, who range from the world’s largest multinational corporations to small local and family businesses, is by helping them to predetermine the success of their launch. Not only can we help them to time it and position it correctly, but we help them to fine tune the concepts prior to launch as well – all based on what their target consumer already wants to buy. It’s so logical it’s a wonderfully exciting process to save companies and individuals the pain of launching the wrong product at the wrong time. [..]