by Laura Ries
Twitter picked a name that could be visualized, focused on 140-character messages and called the messages “tweets.” Locking together these ideas is a killer combination. Twitter currently has over 200 million users.
Twitter has used various bird visuals, but have wisely settled on a simple image and a singular color. Maybe not the prettiest bird in the bush, but it’s a very effective visual hammer.
One of the more unusual animals used as a visual hammer is the dodo, a huge bird distantly related to Asian pigeons.
Dodos existed only on the island of Mauritius which prior to 1598 had no human habitation. So it was a lack of fear and a child-like innocence that these birds greeted the first settlers who promptly killed them for food.
By 1681, the last dodo had died.
The dodo is the visual hammer of the Dodocase, a bamboo and cloth iPad cover constructed using traditional book-binding techniques.
The case which only comes in black is creating a buzz among iPad users. When it came to thinking different, Dodocase certainly did.
Dodocase’s verbal nail: “Protects from extinction.”
Actually, it was the opposite. The dodo couldn’t protect itself from extinction, but no matter. The mind just reverses the idea and accepts the Dodocase nail as reality.
One convincing example of the power of the visual is our stoplights.
Heaven help us if our stoplights were verbal instead of visual.
If our stoplights said “stop, go and caution” instead of using colors, the accident rates on our highways would probably double.
Why do so many brands use a verbal approach and ignore the visual? It makes no sense to me.
The owners of these brands should drive around our streets for a while and perhaps they would see the light.
CHAPTER 12
HERITAGE
PUTTING THE PAST TO WORK.
In 2003, in a metal storage bin in Wainscott, New York, 32 paintings were found that looked as if they were made by Jackson Pollock.
Wrapped in brown paper and tied with string, the paintings were labeled in a hand-written note as Pollocks from the 1940s.
Art experts have valued the paintings, if they are genuine, as worth some $10 million. If not genuine, they are almost worthless.
So it is with many products.
A Prada handbag you bought in a store for $1,800 might be worth eighteen hundred dollars. A Prada look-alike handbag you bought on the street for $50 might be worth what you paid for it.
If you are careful where you shop, “fake” brands are not much of a problem today. But “pretender” brands are.
These are brands that look, smell and taste like the big national brands, but nobody knows their names or what they stand for.
Supermarkets, drug stores, clothing stores and all kinds of stores are loaded with many “pretender” brands.
A “heritage” hammer can create authenticity for your brand and keep it out of the “pretender” category. Consumers today are desperate for products and services that are authentic, that are real.
Even a mythological character like Ronald McDonald can help validate a brand. Kids in particular think that Ronald is the guy who owns their favorite fast-food restaurant chain.
And for kids between the ages of two and six, McDonald’s is by far their first choice, often dragging parents, who might otherwise prefer Burger King, to Ronald McDonald’s place.
What should Burger King have done about the powerful pull of Ronald McDonald?
Nothing. The best strategy is to ignore a competitor’s strength and attack them where they’re weak. Burger King should have focused on the adult market. (My dad once proposed that Burger King appeal to the teens-and-up crowd with a “Grow up to flame broiling” strategy.)
Instead, the chain emulated McDonald’s by installing playgrounds and serving kiddie meals with toys. And to take on Ronald McDonald, Burger King introduced the King.
(The King, an anonymous character in a face mask, looks more creepy than cool.)
It’s never a good idea to copy the competition and besides, the King is not a very good copy. Ronald is warm and fuzzy; the King is cold and distant.
Ten years ago in sales per unit, the average McDonald’s outsold the average Burger King in the U.S. market by 41 percent. Today, the average McDonald’s outsells the average Burger King by 82 percent.
In banks, like in burgers, size is often an advantage. The big banks have more branches, more ATMs and greater street visibility than the small banks.
There are some 7,000 banks in America, the most of any country in the world. But four big banks dominate the industry: Bank of America, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo. Even though Well Fargo is the smallest of the four, it’s the most profitable.
Here are revenues and net profit margins for the four big banks in the past 10 years.
• Citigroup..$1,158.9 billion..8.2 %
• Bank of America..$932.5 billion..10.9%
• JPMorgan Chase..$823.3 billion..10.4 %
• Wells Fargo..$506.6 billion..14.6 %
The stage coach is Wells Fargo’s visual hammer, a symbol most people recognize from dozens of Western movies including the classic film “Stagecoach.”
Why use an old-fashioned symbol like a stage coach for a banking institution that is highly computerized?
In too many marketing circles there’s the perception that “old” is bad and “new” is good.
That’s why “innovation” is the driving force at many of America’s giant corporations. They want to be on the leading edge with the latest thing.
There’s nothing wrong with innovation. “New” is good, but “old” sometimes is even better. “Old” can be the foundation on which to build a strong, up-to-date brand.
The “stagecoach” is a great hammer for Wells Fargo because it symbolizes a company that has been around for more than 150 years.
“Together we’ll go far,” the Wells Fargo verbal nail, is relatively weak, however. You won’t go very far or very fast in a stagecoach. For that, you’d need an airplane.
A better direction for Wells Fargo would have been to emphasize its financial stability. “Other brands come and go, but Wells Fargo has been delivering financial results for more than 150 years,” is the general idea.
Wells Fargo was a real banking and stagecoach company, but a company or a brand can also be successful with a mythical concept.
A vaudeville song, “Old Aunt Jemima,” was the original inspiration for an African-American character in 19th century minstrel shows.
So in 1889, a flour producer borrowed the name for a pancake mix and called it Aunt Jemima.
Today Aunt Jemima, now owned by Quaker Oats, is the leading brand of pancake mix as well as a brand name for syrup and other food products.
Intellectually, the average consumer knows that people like Aunt Jemima were obviously invented to sell products, but emotionally it’s another story. And here is where a visual hammer plays an important role.
Emotionally, the name and the visual create the perception that Aunt Jemima was a real person and an exceptionally good cook. Otherwise, why would they have called the pancake mix “Aunt Jemima?”
And if the real Aunt Jemima was an invented name, there certainly was no Valley of the Jolly Green Giant punctuated by the Giant’s familiar “Ho! Ho! Ho!”
And definitely there was no Betty Crocker or Pillsbury doughboy or Keebler Elves. It doesn’t matter. The Jolly Green Giant and the other symbols are hammers that humanize the brands. They make the brands seem more real and authentic. They create an emotional bond with consumers that words alone cannot do.
At one point in time, Green Giant was the leading frozen-vegetable brand in America in spite of the fact that Birds Eye pioneered the category.
In the past decade or so, Birds Eye has recaptured its leadership position, an achievement helped by its credentials as the first brand in the frozen-foods category.
Another factor
that undermined Green Giant’s frozen-vegetable leadership was the extension of its brand into canned vegetables, a classic mistake and an example of the superiority of the specialist (Bird’s Eye) over the generalist (Green Giant.)
Another mythical creature that built a dominant brand is Mr. Clean, the fictional spokesperson for a brand that was launched in 1958. Within six months of its creation, Mr. Clean was American’s No. 1 cleaning agent and inspired the longest-running jingle in television history.
“Mr. Clean gets rid of dirt and grime and grease in just a minute.”
“Mr. Clean will clean your whole house and everything that’s in it.”
As successful as Mr. Clean has been, I don’t think the next iteration of the brand is going to do nearly as well. Currently, Procter & Gamble is taking Mr. Clean out of the house and using him to open up a chain of car washes.
There are national gas-station chains (Shell), national car-rental chains (Hertz), national fast-lube chains (Jiffy Lube), but not national car-wash chains.
That’s an open hole in consumers’ minds that will eventually be filled by some brand. But, in my opinion, that is not a hole that Mr. Clean can fill. The brand is too identified as a household cleaner, not as a car wash.
Too bad. Retail establishments located on busy highways desperately need visual hammers.
They need to catch the eyes of passing motorists and instantly communicate the brands and the products or services the brands provide.
The Starbucks mermaid. Target’s target. Wendy’s pigtails. McDonald’s golden arches.
But Mr. Clean? It’s going to take a long time to convert a household cleaner into a visual hammer for a car wash.
If ever.
Procter & Gamble should have studied the fate of Mr. Peanut when the Planters brand was line-extended into snack foods, including pretzels, potato chips, corn chips and cheese curls.
A nut brand on a potato chip? That didn’t make a lot of sense to most consumers.
That’s the paradox of marketing. A weak brand name that means almost nothing can be line-extended into different categories. But who wants to do that with a weak brand?
On the other hand, a strong brand name like Planters that dominates the nut category can’t be line-extended.
And yet, strong brands are the brands that everyone wants to expand.
Created in 1916 by a Virginia school boy who won $5 in a contest for his drawing of a little peanut person, Mr. Peanut has evolved over the years. The Mr. Peanut cartoon character, in my opinion, was absolutely necessary for the Planters brand to achieve its 40-percent market share.
Consider the name “Planters.” It’s generic. It’s like “Growers” or “Producers” or “Farmers,” all of which would be weak brand names.
Mr. Peanut, the visual hammer, makes Planters seem more like a specific brand rather than a generic name for a category. He also humanizes the brand, always a good idea.
The Indian maiden on packages of Land O Lakes butter also helps to humanize the brand. The maiden has undergone many minor modifications since she was originally painted in 1928. As it happens, the choice of an Indian woman turned out to be a very good idea for a butter brand. She helps to communicate the natural purity of Land O Lakes butter.
A company that launches a new brand often makes the mistake of using an abstract image to communicate the idea that the brand is up-to-date and “with it.”
Like the symbol for Panera Bread. Abstract art like this might resonate with art critics, but not with the general public who might think that, except for the word “Bread,” Panera is a brand of shampoo. Actually, Panera Bread is a very successful national chain.
With 1,324 units and $2.8 billion in annual sales, Panera is the largest “bakery-cafe” chain in America.
But the brand itself could have been even stronger if it had a visual hammer. The current visual needs to be studied very closely in order to realize the lady with the flowing hair is holding a loaf of bread. Most people ignore the “arty” image and focus on the word “Panera.”
Printed words need to be transformed by the brain into aural sounds before they can be understood. That takes time.
And that is why simple visuals hammers because they can be recognized almost instantly are superior to words alone.
With some exceptions, the use of visual hammers to denote heritage seems to be a dying art. Instead, most brand managers want to modernize their packages.
Why modernize a package? Apparently many marketers want to eliminate visual elements that might indicate that their brands are old or out of date.
But like fine Bordeaux wines, for most brands being around for decades is an advantage, not a disadvantage. It must be good, thinks the consumer, if the brand has successfully withstood the test of time.
Take Pepsi-Cola which has been spending millions on new packaging and new advertising to erase its 113-year history. Even worse, the company recently introduced a “throwback” edition of its Pepsi-Cola brand, visually demonstrating the drastic changes that have taken place in the past decades.
Is that a good idea? Especially, is it a good idea to label the front of the can “Made with real sugar?”
All that does is remind people that current Pepsi-Cola products are made with high-fructose corn syrup.
Then there’s the design issue. It’s one thing to make minor modifications to package design, but Pepsi-Cola has pretty much abandoned its past.
The typography is different. The color is different. The logotype has been redesigned several times.
Pepsi-Cola used to be the No.2 cola. Today, regular Pepsi has fallen to third place, after Coke and Diet Coke.
Coca-Cola, on the other hand, has embraced its heritage. The brand still uses the same Spenserian script hand-drawn in 1886, the year Coca-Cola was introduced.
Today, Coke is the world’s most valuable brand. How’s that for progress?
Or rather, lack of progress.
CHAPTER 13
YOUR HAMMER
HOW TO FIND ONE.
Years ago, Bill Bernbach revolutionized the advertising industry by introducing the team approach.
Before Bernbach, a copywriter worked on the copy and then turned it over to an art director to be “visualized.”
Bernbach radically changed the system by assigning teams of two, a copywriter and an art director, and had them work together to first develop the strategy before they created the advertising.
These art director/copywriter teams elevated advertising to a level not seen before. Often called the Golden Era of Advertising and celebrated on TV by the Mad Men series, the team approach is still widely used in the ad business today.
But you don’t need to hire an agency and an expensive art director/copywriter team to get the benefits of this approach for your brand.
Inside your head, you also have a team you can put to work. Your left brain is the copywriter and your right brain is the art director.
Unfortunately, your left brain is a know-it-all, overbearing dictator. It constantly over-rules the visual ideas generated subconsciously by your right brain.
When your analytical left brain concentrates on a problem, logic tends to win over intuition. Your right holistic brain still has a say, but it tends to be overshadowed by the boss on the other side.
As a result, most people wind up being almost totally verbal and analytical. They live in a world of words. They think in words; they write in words; they talk in words.
And thanks to the digital revolution, we are being bombarded with words on a scale never seen before.
Worldwide, 294-billion emails are sent every day. On Twitter, there are 68-million tweets sent every day. Adding to this verbal outpouring are 255-million websites and 152-million blogs.
When you live in a world of words, you tend to see the world of visuals as somehow secondary to verbal reality.
Yet nature is visual, not verbal.
Take a walk in a park. Or scuba dive in the ocean. Or
climb a mountain. This is reality and there are no words in nature. Words are useful devices created to help people communicate about the reality of nature.
Photographs and drawings are artificial, too, but they are a more direct representation of nature than are words. They have a visceral impact that words do not.
Take this photograph of a baby. No matter how skillful the writer, no matter how polished the copy, words alone cannot capture the emotional impact of a simple photo.
Words alone cannot replace the emotional impact of the Aflac duck, the Marlboro cowboy, the Coca-Cola contour bottle.
These and hundreds of other visual hammers are creating and maintaining some of the world’s best-known and most-valuable brands.
Yet read a typical marketing plan. Dozens of pages and thousands of words with almost no mention of the role a visual hammer might play.
That doesn’t mean that words are not important. Words are important too, but words have a very hard time getting into consumers’ minds without the driving force of a visual.
A visual hammer makes an emotional impact on the right side of the consumer’s brain which motivates the left side of the brain to verbalize the idea and then store it.
Your right brain doesn’t think in the normal sense of what we mean by “thinking.” It reacts emotionally and involuntarily.
Our emotions are not logical. Try to explain what you mean by love, loss, joy, heartbreak or fear. The emotions are real, but difficult to verbalize.
Before discussing how to counteract the left brain’s tendency to take charge of the creative process, it might be helpful to briefly review the history of visual hammers in marketing. There seems to be three phases.