by Laura Ries
The founder of a company benefits from this celebrity worship in two ways: (1) Everyone wants to know something about the person who runs a company and (2) Everyone assumes the products and service of that company reflects the values of its founder. When you are both, as Steve Jobs was, the PR potential is doubled.
Celebrity worship is a relatively new development, but founder worship is not. Henry Ford founded the Ford Motor Company more than a century ago and the company still uses his signature as its trademark.
Why would a modern corporation with the marketing goal of trying to establish a reputation for the latest in automotive technology still use as its logotype the old-fashioned signature of Henry Ford, its founder?
Doesn’t it make the company look out of date?
Perhaps. But the old-fashioned signature also provides both legitimacy and continuity. Any company that has been around as long as the Ford Motor Company must be doing something right.
The concept of legitimacy is especially important in industries that sell “invisible” products. What do you get when you buy a life insurance policy?
You might spend thousands of dollars a year and have nothing to show for it except a pile of paper.
The legitimacy and financial stability of the insurance company is an important aspect of your purchase.
That’s why in the year 1862 the founders of a Boston insurance company borrowed the name of one of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence.
Today, John Hancock Financial Services is a major American insurance company, although currently owned by a Canadian company. Of the 56 signers, John Hancock is one of the most famous and you can see why.
Hancock’s large, flamboyant signature (nearly five inches wide) dwarfs the other 55 signers.
Imagine that? A visual hammer on the Declaration of Independence.
Jack Daniel’s is the best-selling whiskey in the world and the fourth best-selling liquor brand in America (after Smirnoff, Bacardi and Captain Morgan rum.)
One reason for its success is that Jack Daniel’s whiskey is old. The distillery was founded in 1866, just after the Civil War, the first one licensed in the country.
Every category is different, but in the beverage category, old is good, not bad. Witness the success of brands like Old Grand-Dad, Old Crow and Olde English.
And witness the failure of New Coke. Once a beverage brand has become established, change is only going to cause confusion among consumers.
In all types of beverages, it’s not enough to be old. You also need to communicate the concept that the brand has never changed.
Jack Daniel’s has done that in various ways including such messages as: “Not subject to change. Not now. Not ever.”
But it’s the black label itself that’s the visual hammer. The label looks old and the old-fashioned look is reinforced with the words: “Old Time. Old No. 7 brand.”
On the back of the label is the message: “Whiskey made as our fathers made it for 7 generations.”
Jack Daniel’s has also managed to portray the town of Lynchburg, Tennessee, where the distillery is located, as old and never changing.
As one advertisement said: “Jack Daniel’s. Enjoyed in 135 countries, made in a town with one stoplight.”
Jack Daniel, the founder, and the black label are the visual hammers and the “first American whiskey” is the verbal nail although, like Marlboro, the verbal idea is not stated explicitly.
Obviously there are a lot of less-successful liquor brands trying to create an old-fashioned look and reputation. But it’s not enough to have an old-fashioned label and an old-fashioned name like Ancient Age bourbon. You also need an old-fashioned hammer.
Compare Yuengling beer to Jack Daniel’s whiskey. D.G. Yuengling & Son of Pottsville, Pennsylvania, was founded in 1829, more than three decades before Mr. Daniel started his distillery.
While Jack Daniel’s is the largest-selling whiskey, Yuengling doesn’t make the top 20 in beer.
The name “Yuengling,” an Anglicized version of the German term for “young man,” is weak. And unfortunately, the name doesn’t sound German. Nor in English does it connote much of anything or sound very nice. The verbal nail “America’s oldest brewery” has potential, but not without a strong hammer, which the brand definitely lacks. In 2010, President Barack Obama sent a case of Yuengling to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to cover a friendly wager on the outcome of the Winter Olympic hockey final.
That’s the kind of endorsement and PR the brand is going to need to pump up sales. But it’s not going to be easy with a name like Yuengling and no visual hammer.
If Yuengling beer is a bad name, how about John Schnatter’s pizza?
Fortunately, Mr. Schnatter chose a different name. He called his chain, “Papa John’s” in order to compete with Pizza Hut, Domino’s and Little Caesars.
And he has done extremely well. In the American market, Papa John’s has the highest annual per-unit sales of any chain in the pizza category.
Here are per-unit sales in 2010.
Compared to its competitors, Papa John’s went upscale with a verbal nail it has used consistently for decades.
“Better ingredients. Better pizza.”
But the visual hammer in the television commercials is the real secret of Papa John’s success.
With a name like Papa John, you would expect to see an older, Italian-looking man with grey hair and a handlebar mustache in the commercials.
What you don’t expect to see is John Schnatter, who looks like a clean-shaven college student with a rah-rah enthusiasm for his brand.
Papa John is the visual hammer. He looks different than what you might expect. That’s what creates the visual shock which hammers in the verbal nail. “Better ingredients. Better pizza. Papa John’s.”
A good picture, someone once said, would be a row of West Point cadets lined up perfectly. A great picture would be that same line-up with a pigeon sitting on the shoulder of one of the cadets. The pigeon is the hammer that creates the visual shock.
Nobody looked as shocking as Harland Sanders, founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken, now KFC.
Better known as Colonel Sanders, he traveled the country in a white suit and black string tie promoting his secret recipe of 11 herbs and spices. “Finger lickin’ good” was the verbal nail and Sanders was the visual hammer.
The combination created the largest chicken chain in the country.
Harland Sanders was a real Kentucky Colonel, the highest award given to individuals by the state.
(Other Kentucky Colonels include Elvis Presley, Bill Clinton, Betty White and Tiger Woods.)
For a number of years KFC has struggled with its marketing and its product offering. “Fried” chicken developed a perception as unhealthy, which was the reason for switching to the KFC initials.
But unless a company or brand is exceptionally well-known (IBM, AT&T, GE and a handful of others), it’s usually a mistake to change a brand’s name to initials.
Sure, KFC is a well-known nickname for the brand, but the initials just serve as short-hand for Kentucky Fried Chicken in the mind. It is very hard to run away from what you stand for. And KFC stands for “fried chicken.”
KFC has also been running from one ad campaign to another with little continuity or success.
What’s wrong with all of these slogans? None of them suggest a visual.
And without a visual, almost any campaign is doomed from the start.
(Colonel Sanders is on the building, but he no longer serves as the visual hammer for KFC’s marketing.)
“So good,” is KFC’s latest loser slogan. It’s a good example of tunnel thinking, equivalent to putting “blinders” on a race horse.
“So good” might be a minimally effective marketing slogan except one thing. Too many other brands have used similar slogans.
• Campbell’s soup ..........“M’m..M’m good.”
• Maxwell House ...........“Good to the last drop.”
• Delta ............................“Good goes around.”
• GE ...............................“We bring good things to life.”
Both visuals and verbals need to be unique and different. “Good” is a worn-out word.
Except, of course, for those brands that have pre-empted the “good” concept including Campbell’s soup and, would you believe, Kentucky Fried Chicken whose original slogan was “Finger-lickin’ good.”
So how do you fix a brand that has lost its way?
The best way is to back track. Go back in history to reclaim aspects of the brand that made it successful in the first place.
One visual aspect of the KFC brand that almost every consumer identifies with is Colonel Sanders in his white suit and white goatee.
The best brands are those where every aspect of the brand is “locked” together, which, of course, is what this book is all about.
The locking together of the visual and the verbal. But that concept also applies to the name.
Drive past a KFC restaurant and what do you see? A big picture of Colonel Sanders. So why wouldn’t you call the restaurant chain “Colonel Sanders” chicken?
That locks the brand name to the visual hammer. And why wouldn’t you bring back the original slogan, “Finger-lickin’ good….with 11 herbs and spices?” I would.
One advantage of using a dead founder like Colonel Sanders as your visual hammer is the fact that he will never get into a scandal and damage the brand.
That’s not always the case with a live founder.
What about Martha Stewart who spent five months in jail for “obstructing justice, conspiracy and making false statements” in an insider-trading case.
Did the bad publicity hurt the Martha Stewart brand? In the short term, sure, but it didn’t kill it.
The brand today is probably no better off or worse off that it was before the trial.
That’s not to say that the brand is healthy. It’s not.
In the last ten years, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, the company controlled by Ms. Stewart, had revenues of $2.6 billion and managed to lose $173 million.
Why is the company in such trouble when Martha Stewart is one of the best-known women in America?
That’s the paradox of marketing. It doesn’t matter how “well-known” you are. The only thing that matters is “what” you are well-known for.
Colonel Sanders is known for chicken. Papa John is known for pizza. Jack Daniel is known for whiskey. John Hancock is known for insurance. But what is Martha Steward known for?
The “Omni” in Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia illustrates the weakness in her brand.
Martha Stewart is known for everything…and nothing. Magazines, books, television, radio, pots & pans, towels, sheets, paint, flowers, you name it.
When you put your name on everything, you usually wind up standing for almost nothing.
Another founder who is floundering is Hugh Hefner of Playboy.
His magazine made an enormous impact when it was first published in December of 1953.
For many years, Playboy was the largest-circulation men’s publication in the country. But like Martha Stewart, he couldn’t resist the urge to expand his brand.
Over the years there has been Playboy clubs, Playboy hotels, Playboy books, Playboy videos, Playboy cable channels & TV shows and hundreds of Playboy products licensed to various companies including the makers of condoms and t-shirts.
What there hasn’t been much of is Playboy profits.
In the past ten years, Hugh Hefner’s company, Playboy Enterprises, has had revenues of $3.0 billion and losses of $293 million.
Playboy went public in 1971 for $23.50 a share. It was taken private in 2011 by a group led by Hugh Hefner for $6.15 a share. (After 40 years, not much of a return on your investment.)
In those 40 years, Playboy and its founder Hugh Hefner have received reams of publicity leading people to believe that the company must be fabulously successful.
But PR success is not always equivalent to financial success. Take Richard Branson, founder of Virgin, a megabrand that has spawned 300 different companies worldwide.
Nobody, but nobody, has received as much favorable publicity as Richard Branson.
But PR success is no magic wand that can create instant money. Many of his 300 Virgin companies are reportedly big losers.
Then, too, most Virgin companies are private, so it’s hard to tell whether they are successful or not.
But I was able to track down eight of the Virgin companies that reported revenues and profits. (Virgin Active, Virgin Blue, Virgin Media, Virgin Mobile Telecoms, Virgin Money, Virgin Rail, Virgin Unite and Virgin Wine.)
In a recent year, these eight companies reported sales of $10.4 billion and net profits after taxes of …well in total they didn’t make any money.
They actually lost $429 million.
Richard Branson is a mighty hammer, but like Martha Stewart and Hugh Hefner he is trying to use his PR skills to hit too many nails at once.
What’s a Virgin anyway? For one thing, it’s an airline. Actually, it’s three airlines, one in the United Kingdom, one in Australia and one in America. None of these three airlines seem to be making any net profits.
Nor do his other Virgin companies appear to be making much progress.
When was the last time you saw someone order a Virgin cola, a Virgin vodka, a Virgin energy shot or unscrew a bottle of Virgin wine?
Yet Branson has had an enormous impact on the marketing community. “If Virgin can do it, why can’t we?”
That’s the attitude of many marketing people worldwide. But few marketing people seem to have dug into the actual results of Virgin’s line extensions. If they did, they would realize it’s not a model to emulate.
Then there’s the question of what happens when Richard Branson is no longer around?
Many visual hammers don’t survive into the second generation. Take Frank Perdue, the man behind the success of Perdue chicken.
In 1953, when Frank Perdue became president and chief executive of Perdue Farms, the chicken-breeding company was doing about $5 million in sales a year.
In 1970, Perdue Farms launched its first television campaign featuring its sharp-featured president.
Sales skyrocketed. By 1988, Perdue revenues reached $975 million. Today, they are $4.6 billion.
While the company has survived and prospered, the tough-man hammer and the tender-chicken nail have not.
In 1994, Frank’s son James Perdue took over as the spokesperson for the brand, but he didn’t have the tough-guy personality of his father.
Furthermore, his verbal nail, “A healthy obsession with chicken,” doesn’t have the memorability of “It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken.”
Can a personal hammer survive into the second or even the third generation? It certainly can in politics.
Witness the success of George W. Bush, Al Gore, Andrew Cuomo, Chris Dodd, Richard Daley, Ben Quayle and other sons and daughters of famous political fathers. And companies can do the same thing.
But in Perdue’s case, perhaps there was too much emphasis on the hammer and not enough on the nail.
A “tender” chicken is a generic claim that could be used by almost any producer.
Perdue chickens had a visual difference that played a big part in the success of the brand.
Perdue chickens were fed marigold leaves to turn their skins bright yellow. Instead of “tender” chicken it might have been better to use “golden” chicken as a verbal nail.
Whenever you have a choice, it’s always better to select the claim that is visually different even though it’s not verbally better. Visuals are more powerful than words.
No person can live forever, but a founder hammer can exist for several lifetimes. So how does a brand make the transition from a live founder to a dead historical figure?
One thing that is helpful is using a stylized cartoon drawing of the founder rather
than a photograph.
That doesn’t usually work on television but on signs, on the Internet and in print, it works very well.
Another thing that is helpful is a difference in clothing (white suit & black string tie for Colonel Sanders) or a difference in facial hair (mustache & goatee for Jack Daniel.)
Take Orville Redenbacher, the visual hammer for the popping-corn brand which has survived the death of its founder. It didn’t work when they tried to use him as a cartoon on television, but in print, on the Internet and on the package, Orville Redenbacher with his black glasses and bow tie is still alive and well and effective as a visual hammer.
The verbal nail for the brand is its high price. Initially, the words “Gourmet popping corn” were set in larger type than the brand name, followed by the claim, “World’s most-expensive popping corn.”
Today, the brand is focused on “gourmet.” And it doesn’t just say gourmet, the brand has a visual difference. Since it only uses larger popping kernels, Orville Redenbacher’s popping corn pops bigger and fluffier.
Despite the advantages a higher price can bring, many companies overlook the simple idea of charging more for their products.
That’s the idea that built brands like Rolex, Evian, Starbucks, Häagen-Dazs, Grey Goose and many others.
But it’s not enough for your brand to be “expensive.” Your brand also has to be the first brand in the category to be perceived as expensive.
In marketing terminology, Orville Redenbacher’s gourmet popping corn “preempted” the expensive popping-corn category. Other brands that follow might be just as expensive, but they will never become “the” gourmet popping corn.