I was delighted to hear about the Foxytunes-Yahoo! deal. The Israeli media reports 30-40 mil , which is x10 on investment.

I met Alex & Vitaly, brothers and founders, in the summer of 2006, while visiting Israel on another project. A long talk in my hotel room has developed to a short but sweet brand strategy project. One of my most enjoyable collaborations ever.

Over a couple of weeks, mostly through email and Skype, we had some seriously exciting conversations about the future of music and the Internet, and how Foxytunes can help. At the time they were already a highly popular Firefox extension, but found it hard to communicate and differentiate their offering.

My job is rarely that easy - all the good stuff was there, we just had to dig for it together, focus it, and articulate it. That’s because Alex & Vitally are true visionaries, driven by a very clear ideology. I would come up with catchy ways to convey what they were about, and they would gently slap my hand when the message wasn’t as accurate and clear as it was in their mind, or if it could make anyone, anywhere, confuse their true cause.
Back in the days, we used to talk about how information wants to be free (this fight is still going on, recently the fight for user information). It can also be said that music wants to be free, and Foxytunes is a product built around that world-view.

For me, Foxytunes were always the poster-boys-case-study for a post I wrote about the relationship between brand strategy and product development. Now I can finally say it.

I would like to think our collaboration helped them communicate more clearly and get decision makers along the way “get it” the same way Firefox users so easily groked them, but I always knew they were going to be successful - with or without my help.

I’ve met very few web entrepreneurs more deserving of becoming multi-millionaires.
My only regret is that at the time they politely declined my offer to get paid in stock-options…

Mazal Tov guys! It has been a pleasure and an honour!

 Last time I talked about the generic trap loop. This time I want to talk about another generic trap, a “golden generic cage” of sorts. Another case where being successful brings with it the curse of becoming generic.

I’m fascinated by stories where leading brands become stuck in that generic spot everybody is trying to get out of. These are players who worked very hard to get to the top, only to discover they’re all pretty much the same up there.
As a consultant I really like working with challenger brands, but often find them trudging through a painful plateau, that is something quite depressing for a hard-working
over-achieving team.

This is a plot that repeats in highly competitive global categories, especially with big service oriented B2B companies. In these categories it is common to have hundreds if not thousands of global players, but there will usually be a group of leaders that tower among everyone else. They may be top-5 top-10 or top-50, it depends on the category, but they stand apart from all the rest.

When a brand enters this exclusive club a common mistake will be to get stuck on things that no longer matter for audiences:
“We’ve grown a lot in the last couple of years - nobody seems knows it. Let’s make more noise about how big and good we are.”.
News-flash: no one cares. Of course you’re big, that’s why you’re a top-X player. Thus, this fact becomes boring and irrelevant. Counter-intuitive, eh?

Read the rest of this entry »

On a recent project, that was very typical of this plot, I realised this was a reoccurring pattern, an almost disease-like condition, common especially among service brands.

The symptoms:
Your category’s brands all seem the same, they may be differentiated on the identity/communications level, but when you look at the actual perceptions (see brand vs. “brand”) of the target audiences, you find out that their perceptions are similar between competitors and pretty much correlate to the market-share of each player. It is an eerie feeling, as if no brand in the category stands for anything, even more so “owns” any positioning arena.

Epidemiology:
Common in markets where the brand experience in a category has been generic or dormant for very long - this could be due to lack of competition, or any other type of stagnation. It can also happen regardless of product innovation, because product innovation may stay purely functional if brands don’t differentiate.
I’ve found it is extremely common in emerging markets, where often many service categories used to be government owned or just heavily regulated.  A condition increasing the likelihood of this syndrome is when players try to adopt “best practices” from other markets instead of coming up with the meaningful moves necessary to shift image in their own market.

Microbiology:
The tacit structure is simple. People’s perception of their experiences is poor, and their expectations are low – so they don’t think players in the category stand for anything.
They will only switch brands on extreme negatives (e.g. a health crisis or gross-misconduct leading to a full scale public image crisis).
If you talk to them using focus groups or interviews, people in “trapped categories” will mostly talk about their fears / anger with relation to the brand experience. If you try to tap them for ideas, they will articulate their ambitions as the removal of negatives.

Roughly, in these situations, you will find customers in qualitative research divide into two groups: “Weak customers”, from marginal segments talk mainly about fears. Form the “please stop the pain“ group.
“Strong customers”, from sought-after and courted segments, will vent their anger about all players in the category. This the “go be stupid somewhere else“ group.

Ignoring this condition triggers the “generic loop complex”, which very simply works like this:

1. A brand’s category is largely generic
2. The company discover that the category, their brand included, is generic.
3. They turn to the customer for answers.
4. The customers can only speak of their generic experiences
5. The company bases any vision or “new” concept this input, mistakenly labelling it as  “customer insight”, or it borrows undifferentiated best practices from other markets as its home audience requirements seem generic.
6. Managers come up with generic briefs ; Agencies with generic solutions
7. Go to 1.

Treatment:
You have to be brave.
Look inside for answers. Another focus group just won’t do. Take a hard look at the company and realise what made this brand get so far. Then build on your best qualities. Start to communicate what you wish to stand for. Your audience can not tell you what the break-through experience should be, simply because they have never experienced it. Trying to force them into giving you an answer will just make things worse.
Only you can find what it all means.
If you want to make sense of your world, MAKE it.
Sense is made, rarely found.
Facts are found, stories are created.

This is a useful term coined by a client I had about two years ago. He was a Russian working for a company setting up a new mobile brand in Belgium (No1, Carrefour’s MVNO). When he briefed us for the brand identity project he put a couple of competitor’s brochures on the table and gave a simple direction in a confident tone:

“No Jumpology”

It was very clear what he meant. No pictures of people jumping for joy.
What is it with the irregular amount of people jumping for joy for no apparent reason in some brand communications? Are we to suppose their lives have been transformed by choosing a mobile operator? How often does one rejoice over these things?

Jumpology is an annoying symptom of one of the advertising industry’s greatest sins - Emotional fundamentalism (a phrase coined by Greg Rowlands). There was a period around the late 90s when it was all over the place, and especially common with telecom and financial brands, perhaps because so many of their benefits are quite abstract.

There is no sense in trying to over-amplify the implications of your offering. It doesn’t even get to the over-promising stage, it just makes your brand look pretentious and artificial. Additionally, it immediately refers to a soulless, passé, generic corporate tone of voice - which is probably the opposite of every service branding effort.
And yet, so many brands default to it, especially with below the line communications and collateral. If you are a brand manager or marcom manager, take a hard look at your materials. Any Jumpology? It’s time you brought back some true meaning into your communications.

As Hugh MacLeod says:

Incidentally, Jumpology is often a symptom of what could be the world’s most fatal (and quite common) marketing strategy error, which I intend to discuss soon.

This morning, I’ve been asked by tube paper Metro to provide a comment on the new London 2012 logo.

Here is my full comment, obviously edited down for the news item:

Wolff-Ollins are known for creating innovative solutions, but perhaps they got trapped in a “design by committee” situation this time. It will be interesting to see how this logo evolves by 2012.

While focusing on the digits of the year 2012 helped avoid some clichés of past Olympic emblems (torches, figures jumping, etc…), it left the brand slightly hollow, robbing it of a clear message. The youth-appeal box has been ticked, and there’s an obvious influence of new-york graffiti emblems of the 80s - a style that is making a retro-chique come-back at the moment.

At the end of the day, it is unclear if it fully answered the brief of “access, participation, stimulation and inspiration”, and if it can have the mass appeal required to create “everyone’s games”. It’s a shame the opportunity to capture the spirit of vibrant cosmopolitan London has been missed, and it is highly debatable if the stylistic choices made will still seem fresh in five years.

Metro article link

I should add here: I couldn’t find the full identity anywhere, only the logo, I expect that the full identity is well thought out, but maintain my position on this problematic logo. The creative peter principle?

Also - have a look at some past logos. Some of them are quite striking - like the Munich or Moscow logos. Logos from Athens and Barcelona may be tamer, but at least provide clarity of message.

(and yes… I can see the little man dancing)

some contributions from BBC users.

A follow up post

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