Category Archives: Brand Strategy

Brand Strategy, Portfolio

Happy Socks is going slowly back to just selling Socks

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Happy Socks is going back to its core of selling socks. The website is restructured around Socks. The Happy Socks Underwear is gone.

The brand’s core idea, to bring happiness and color to every corner of the world, can be replicated to other categories as well – but in the case of Happy Socks, the brand name will forever be limiting. 

Back in 2018, I wrote a post discussing the brand stretch of Happy Socks into underwear, swimming gear, and much more. I did not see a future for Happy Socks Underwear, Happy Socks Swimsuits, or Happy Socks Pool Sliders.  Strategically I saw two options for the Happy Socks company:

  1. Stick with the category of socks – and take more market share
  2. Bring the other products under a different brand

It seems that Happy Socks company is moving into the direction of option 1. The website is reworked, and the homepage has a clear focus on Socks.

 

The web menu makes the distinction even more clear. It is all about Socks and Not Socks.

The Not Socks section cover face masks and swimming gear. By positioning the products clearly as “Not Socks” it feels these products are more like accessories, not part of the brand’s core. This positioning gives Happy Socks Company more freedom to make changes to the portfolio. For example, if a line does not work, the company can easily replace it without hurting the core Socks offering. Of course, it is still weird to walk around in Happy Socks Swim shorts.

But how did the company get here?

Happy Socks got famous for its colorful socks. When the company was founded in 2008, most of the socks in the market were plain. The founders decided to change that and bring more color and design to our feet. Something remarkable happened: they made a boring accessory item (socks) into a hip fashion statement and succeeded.

The mix of focus on colorful socks, decent quality, and a brand name that boozes energy in a boring category worked well. Happy Socks are truly happy compared to traditional socks.
In 2017 the company sold most of the shares to a private equity firm – usually one of the warning signs that growth needs to be accelerated. The shareholders must have been thinking: the company knows about color and design, there are contracts with factories that can produce socks. Why not do some clothing? Happy Socks quickly expanded the product portfolio to underwear and swimwear.

Today the company seems to be getting more and more back to its core: socks. By positioning everything else as “Not Socks” it allows for freedom to experiment with the portfolio – without hurting the core.

Brand Strategy

ZOOM the company that delivers happiness

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Some of my readers know that I am busy with a brand new book. At this stage, most of the book is written, but I continue my research. One of the companies I recently looked at was  ZOOM and specifically the About ZOOM web pages. My aim: to figure out what ZOOM stands for both inside and outside the company.

It was honestly a shock to read the content that defines ZOOM. In short: the About ZOOM page is a collection of empty and not differentiating brand & strategy blurbs. 

Let’s take a look at each of the elements of the About page:

#1. What is the Promise of ZOOM?ZOOM delivers happiness, every single day.

Yes, you are reading this right. Think about that the next time you are in a ZOOM call or get communications from ZOOM.

 

#2. What is the ZOOM culture?

To deliver on the ZOOM promise of Delivering Happiness, the company simply defined its culture as Delivering happiness – how thoughtful, differentiating and unique..

 

#3. How is the promise of ZOOM delivered?

Through one value: Care. Whatever ZOOM employees do for Community, Customers, Company, Teammates, and Selves: they Care.

I am not sure how just “Care” can be differentiating. Values should give clear guidance, like a compass, how decisions are made, actions are performed, and how employees communicate internally and externally. The company values should be so strong and unique to the company that users experience them every single time  when interacting with the brand.

So, what is ZOOM all about?

By now, you might be thinking, is ZOOM a new-age type of Happiness company, with dedicated employees delivering Happiness every day, and who are delivering this amazing Promise in a caring way.

Now, just hang on for a minute because the ZOOM Mission and Vision turn it all in a different direction.

 

#4 The Mission and Vision of ZOOM

The Mission and Vision seem an afterthought or leftover from previous strategy work.

The keywords of the previous sections Delivering Happiness and Care are replaced by Frictionless, Secure, Empowering, and  Accomplishing more.

Do you feel the difference? It is huge – when employees are focused on, e.g., empowering and accomplishing more, they are in a very different state of mind than when they Care or Deliver Happiness.

On the Mission and the Security element specifically: during the initial part of the Corona crisis, ZOOM got hit with severe security flaws, and even today, there are still privacy and security woes. Tom’s Guide keeps an up-to-date list here. 

 

#5 About ZOOM

The website continues with a small section, “About ZOOM” which again steers the company’s core into a different direction. In this section, ZOOM is there to help you express ideas, connect to others, and build toward a future limited only by your imagination.

 

Simple suggestions for improvement 

What is wrong with all of this with the stock-listed company ZOOM? Pretty much everything!

Let’s clarify the ZOOM brand in a straightforward way with just a few steps. 

#1 Firmly claim a position
It is vital to claim a position – only by doing so can people know precisely the difference between your brand and others in terms of what it concretely is and does.

Using ZOOM own words:
– ZOOM, the only frictionless video conferencing app
– ZOOM, the innovation standard in video conferencing

#2 Define the company character
What type of company is ZOOM? How do people work, decide and take action? This is not what we want the company to be, but what the culture is all about. Based on the direction given by ZOOM, I use the Caregiver character as an example. The Caregiver’s strategy is to do things for others, intending to help others. Compassion and Generosity are essential.

#3 Define brand values that steer 
Taking the Company Character and Care concept, we can define strong values, such as Thoughtful, Humane, Compassionate. These are all adjectives and are easy to use to steer activities. I can, for example, say, “this copy text feels thoughtful, humane, and compassionate. It is on ZOOM brand.” The values are also not the opposite or conflicting, which makes assessing actions focussed.

#4 Define the Belief
The Belief is rooted in the Company’s Character. As a belief, it is shared among all employees and is the foundation to deliver every single day the promise.
For example: At ZOOM we believe that the greatest, most sustainable happiness comes from making others happy.

#4 Define the promise
The Promise is also routed in the Company Character and delivered by employees to each other and external.
For example: At ZOOM we promise is to be good and do good

 

Summing at all up

The brand can be summed up in a few lines. While I did not include a mission or vision it feels more coherent in steering the brand in actions, decisions, products, and communications.

  • ZOOM is the only frictionless video conferencing app
  • Audience:  Community, Customers, Companies, Teammates, and Selves
  • Promise to each other and customers: to be good and do good
  • The promise is delivered through the values: Thoughtful, Humane, Compassionate
  • And ZOOM can make it happen because it firmly beliefs that the greatest, most sustainable happiness comes from making others happy.

 

Photo by Arjohn Janroe Queral on Unsplash

Brand Strategy, Portfolio

Mircosoft goes back to the future with renewed focus on productivity

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It took a while, but slowly but surely Microsoft is becoming the company that truly stands for productivity.

Microsoft is going to make real strides in translating the brand into products and propositions and become again the company that stands for productivity; exactly as we came to know it.

After all, productivity is where the brand started for the masses. Think of the IBM PC with MS-DOS, first used in the business environment.

With the introduction of Windows and Office, it was, of course, completely clear: the combination in the workplace and synonyms for productivity.

Even the competition recognized this positioning. Apple made some jokes about PCs and PC users in its Mac vs PC ad, but deep down it was a character sketch of creative versus productive. This is also exactly the difference between the Office Suite and the Apple iWork Suite. One is focused on productivity, the other primarily on creativity.

Now it is clear again to Microsoft itself what the core of the company is. In an email, ceo Satya Nadella says that “at our core, Microsoft is the productivity and platform company for the mobile-first and cloud-first world. We will reinvent productivity to empower every person and every organization on the planet to do more and achieve more.’

The recent repositioning of the Surface tablets towards productivity is already a great example. In 2012, the Surface was launched as ‘a laptop in a tablet form’. Very inconvenient when the obvious trend is that the number of laptops is decreasing. In addition, the Surface had all sorts of problems such as a sky-high price (nota bene more expensive than a laptop with touch), moderate battery consumption and lack of applications. Due to its unclear positioning, the Surface was compared unfavorably to iPad, the #1 in the tablet category.

The new Surface website now provides more clarity. A translation of the brand into propositions is visible. I read ‘Surface – the most productive tablets on the world’. Of course this could have been even sharper, for example ‘Surface – the first tablet focused on productivity’ with a headline like ‘finally, a tablet that can replace your laptop’. But the beginning is there.

Now that Microsoft’s core is crystal clear, it needs to make a clear choice and then, of course, go for it. The recent news of 18,000 job cuts will certainly contribute to this. For example, how does the Xbox gaming platform fit with productivity? How does Nokia phones’ focus on their photographic capabilities fit with productivity?

If the brand is truly providing direction, then the character or values of the brand can be used as a compass. Creating and executing branded products & propositions then becomes easier. And consumers understand exactly what you do and-importantly-how you make a difference.

This article was published in Adformatie (Dutch).

Brand Strategy, Portfolio

Instagram out of focus

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We all know Instagram, the app to take photos with your mobile, apply beautiful filters and share them. Instagram makes pretty much any photo look good! Recently Instagram added the possibility to create videos, add beautiful filters and share them.

The question is: does it really matter? Will Instagram users care, follow and start sharing videos enhanced with filters en masse?

The answer depends very much on how Instagram is positioned in the minds of users. When users think “apply filters” but say “just Instagram it” then yes, users could make the leap.

But I have some doubts. First, Instagram is simply the #1 photo sharing site for photos with filters. The core of Instagram is photos + filters, it is not the other way around. This is very hard to change.

Secondly, in the photo and video online business it is not about convergence, it is all about divergence. Flickr has done videos since 2008, but videos are really hard to find on the site. In fact, there is not a single mentioning of “video” on the flickr.com home page. The same goes with professional photo editing tools. Adobe Lightroom and Apple Aperture both provide possibilities to edit videos, but no mentioning of this feature on their main product pages.

While the adoption rate for Instagram with video will be huge and we will see plenty of users trying it out, I do believe that the better route for Instagram in the long run would have been to keep focus and continue to bring only the best possible photos + filters experience under the Instagram brand.

At the same time Instagram could have expanded the business to video by either acquiring an existing company or by starting a new brand with a dedicated focus on video + filters. This would allow the company to innovate in both categories without dependencies. More importantly, in the long run, it might bring in users who are not using Instagram for photos or don’t want to use it.

Good examples are Twitter and Vine (which is owned by Twitter). Both are about snippets of information, Twitter in text, Vine in a 6 second looping video. Both are managed under a separate brand. A case could have probably been made for Vine to be called Twitter Videos, but luckily it got to remain as an own brand and look what happened!

This post appeared in Markkinointi & Mainonta

Brand Strategy, Positioning

Burger Brand Battle

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Context: In Finland is a burger fast food duopoly between McDonalds (American) and Hesburger (Finnish). In May Burger King announced it would re-enter the market (their first attempt years ago failed) through a local chain called Restel.

Big news when Restel announced to bring Burger King back to the Finnish fast food market! Of course, McDonald’s quickly pointed out that the fast-food market in Finland is tight. Indeed, after Hesburger bought Carrols in 2012 the common believe might have been that the Finnish market is to small to go beyond a duopoly. Nothing could be further from the truth: with the arrival of Burger King the burger brand battle is about to start!

So, what might happen?

For the current players in the market, McDonalds and Hesburger I can only see trouble at the horizon. In general brands are strongest when they mean one thing and one thing only, like Heinz = Ketchup. This is the power of focus. Both Hesburger and McDonalds are currently not very focussed brands. Let me ask you, how would you describe McDonalds or Hesburger to your friends in a couple of words without using any marketing talk? It is quite difficult, isn’t ? I have heard some: McDonalds is the original or American, Hesburger is Finnish, there is a difference in mayonnaise etc. These are all right, but they do not help McDonalds or Hesburger to position itself clearly in the market.

Burger King on the other hand can capitalise on a very strong position: Burger King = Fire-grilled beef. So, if you want a fire-grilled beef burger you go to Burger King. When it comes to brand clarity Burger King is currently the winner!

What could McDonalds do?
McDonalds could focus on being the really FAST, fast, food restaurant. After all, a fire-grilled beef burger does imply slowness to it. Another alternative is to (re)focus around family: McDonalds, the family fast food restaurant.
What McDonalds should not do is to further increase the number of products. For example, the current MyBurger campaign does not help to increase clarity of what McDonalds is. It is merely a nice marketing activity but it is not helping to build the brand.

What could Hesburger do?
Hesburger will be in an interesting position. Being a Finnish chain in the middle of the two American giants they should play the Finnish card. This could be done through ensuring everything they sell is produced in Finland. If this means reducing items on the menu, then go for it! For example, a Fish burger made of fish from Finland. Of course, on the box you can read which Finnish fish is used in the burger. Another alternative is to play on the Finnish taste buts. Hesburger will be perceived to know the Finns best!

Now, is the Finnish burger market really so tight that there is only space for three chains?
I don’t think so! Could you imagine a chain that only and only focuses on organic burgers? I can! Or what about a chain like the In-n-Out burger in the USA that has only three top notch quality burgers on the menu? Could that work? Of course it can!

I claim that in Finland there is space for at least five burger chains… let the burger brand battle begin!

This post appeared in Markkinointi & Mainonta

Brand Promise, Brand Strategy, Perception, Portfolio

Netflix buys DVD.com, what’s next in the branding saga?

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Netflix, once known as one of the most successful dot-com startups is going through a rough time with some serious branding mistakes. Today I read on engadget.com that Netflix bought DVD.com… why would they do that?

Seven years ago the world looked great for Netflix. In 2005 it was shipping 1 Million DVDs per day to its subscribers. Wow! Netflix had an amazing position: it simply was #1 in the DVD rental. Netflix was nicely riding on the DVD player sales. There was one problem though… the DVD player was eventually going to be replaced by digital distribution.

The Netflix folks saw that coming and in 2007 they introduced streaming under the same Netflix brand. The service became successful but times changed and in Q3 2011 Netflix lost 800.000 subscribers.

The Netflix folks saw that one coming too and decided that the strong brand Netflix should live on in the streaming business, making place for a new brand called Qwikster for the DVD rental business. A couple of months later the idea was buried.

Or… was it? Netflix has now bought DVD.com. I am sure one of the ideas of the folks at Netflix is to use that for the rental business, moving Netflix over to the streaming business forever.

Now… what is going on here? Is this really the smartest move? No it is not!

Firstly, Netflix should have retained the Netflix brand for the DVD rental business only. The brand was the number one in the category. Even though the category is dying (and with that the brand) it would have been the best thing.

Secondly, for the streaming business a second brand would have been appropriate. It is a substantial new business / category in which the company could have been number one again. This brand should have been positioned as the streaming service.

Thirdly, buying a generic domain “DVD.com” is really a waste of money. Consumers are not thinking “I’d like to rent a DVD so I go to DVD.com”,  they think “I’d like to rent a DVD so I go to Netflix.com”. The DVD.com “brand” is a waste of money.

 

Brand Strategy

Amazon.com, the online retailer where we used to shop

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The other day when visiting Amazon.com I got a surprise: a new home page!  I guess Amazon is testing and therefore spreading the new home page in the wild with some customers.

The new home page shows the new direction of Amazon. In fact it is a long departure from the Amazon that we all know so well. You know,  the company that sells physical goods, “Earth’s Biggest Retailer“ and has a well earned number one position.

Not so any more. Today Amazon reinvents themselves as a digital retailer. What a really bad idea.  I wrote earlier about Amazon and their line extension move to digital. There were clear signs that Amazon might fall for the line extension trap.

Let take a look at the new home page:

Now take a close look at the categories:

  • Instant video
  • MP3 store
  • Cloud Player
  • Kindle
  • Cloud Drive
  • Appstore for Android
  • Game & Software Downloads
  • Audible Audiobooks

Hang on a minute? Where are:

  • Books
  • Film, Music, Games
  • Electronics
  • Computers & Office
  • Home, Garden, Pets
  • Toys, Children & Baby
  • Clothes, Shoes & Watches
  • Hobbies, Sports & Leisure
  • Grocery, Health & Beauty
  • DIY, Tools & Car

Clearly, in the “new” Amazon these are not as important anymore. It is now all about digital.

Let’s get somethings straight:

  • Amazon is currently in traffic #5 in the USA and #15 globally (via Alexa.com Sep 25)
  • Amazon is the undisputable #1 online retailer “Earth’s Biggest” both in numbers and in consumers mind
  • Some of Amazon product categories are challenged by more focussed brands like Diapers.com, Drugstore.com, Bookrepository.com and many more, but Amazon has still competitive advantage over many of the challengers by offering Amazon Prime (‘free’ shipping for 79USD per year) across all the product ranges.

Now, Amazon wants to “expand” the business and moving into digital. In other words moving from a category in which it is number one to a category it will need to compete really hard against established brands like  iTunes, Spotify, Pandora, Skydrive and many more…

The big question for me is: what are the guys at Amazon HQ’s thinking? Why dilute the meaning of the Amazon brand by entering in the digital space? You did it right with Kindle (you did not call it the Amazon reader) and MyHabit  (you did not call it Amazon Fashion Goldbox) and you should have done exactly the same with digital.

Keep your brand where it is established, especially when it is number one in a category and create a new brand for digital, that is what Amazon should have done.

Brand Promise, Brand Strategy

Amazon.com: what happened to the promise of Earth’s Biggest?

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Back in the days the promise of Amazon was “Earth’s biggest bookstore”. How easy to believe! Millions of books at a good price with a brand named after another earth’s biggest.

Remember?

Then Amazon moved on from just books to CDs/DVDs/Games. In my view all still very logic and Amazon executed the right strategy to stay “Earth’s Biggest” in these categories. How? By being The Biggest.

It did not stop there, Amazon expanded further, according to their website “today, Amazon offers everything from books and electronics to tennis rackets and diamond jewelry.” Still, this enormous expansion works. When living in New York City we “amazoned” pretty much everything. Amazon became “Earth’s Biggest Retailer“. This positioning was supported with help of “Amazon Prime”: free 2 day shipping for a yearly fixed fee that tremendously helped taking away the two headaches of internet shopping: delivery fees and delivery time.

At the moment Amazon has expanded even further. This time however the expansion goes beyond the Retail category. This expansion is where future problems for Amazon will come in.

 

The Amazon.com shopping experience is now split in “Digital” and “Physical”. In other words: the line extension split is made very explicit to consumers. Why will this not work in the long run?

Firstly, Amazon has expanded the brand from retail to digital media consumption. As we know expanding brands in new categories include a risk: consumers can get confused with your current position. Why risk it? Fast forward a couple of years and think about what consumers would answer to the question “What is Amazon in one word?”: is it web shopping, cloud storage, a sort of Netflix or still the best place to buy products online?

Secondly, this move endangers Amazons current positioning of Earths Biggest in physical goods, a position they should simply not give up!  There is plenty of competition that has a very reduced scope and focus, such as The Book Depository. Book Depository sells well… books (and only books) but differentiates with free worldwide shipping. Since we live in Finland it has become my number one go to book site. So Amazon will  need to improve in all the sub categories of the products they are selling to stay Earths Biggest.

Thirdly, in “Digital” goods Amazon is far from being Earths Biggest, and even if Amazon would be in terms of numbers they are not in consumer’s mind. In this space there is lots of existing and established competition.

The option I would have recommended to Amazon is to strongly consider launching a new brand, let’s say Everest. Amazon did it right with Kindle. Calling the current Kindle product the “Amazon reader” would have been a disaster. Think about it… would a consumer go to a shop to buy an Amazon? No, they wouldn’t, but they do go to the shop for a Kindle. And it pretty successful: Kindle is now synonymous with e-books/ digital reading.

Everest would on one hand be an part of Amazon, just like how Kindle and the Kindle Store are today. On the other hand on Everest.com would attract new customers who not necessarily would go to Amazon.com for digital media consumption. The “only” thing Amazon would need to make sure is that Everest.com would create a consumer need based on something new, not serving consumers the same or very similar stuff they can get with the established players.

Brand Promise, Brand Strategy

How Philips can differentiate from Braun in the shavers market

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I am raised in a Braun shaver family. My father has a Braun, my grandfather had a Braun and I ended up with a Braun as well. Similar experiences I see with my friends: some have Braun, others have Philips. The market is split.

Recently we were visiting my parents in law and I had forgotten my shaver. As we had something special that weekend I ended up borrowing the shaver of my father in law. It turned out to be a Philips. A couple of minutes in the job I changed my mind about Philips shavers… in fact, I liked it so much better than my Braun that I will be switching brands soon.

Why? The simple answer is that Philips created a product that works with my face: it does not assume there are straight lines!

Below the shaving head of a Braun. As you can see this is a straight line. Whatever new technologies Braun is inventing (the latest is Pulsonic technology with 10.000 micro vibrations that help to capture more hair) the dilemma of a straight line vs a curved face will not be solved.

Below the head of a Philips shaver. Philips explains on its website “three independently flexing heads in a shaving unit that swivels with full range of motion. This unique combination ensures optimum skin contact in curved areas to catch even the most problematic neck hair.”…. aka lots of text to say that the shaving head works with your face.

To capture the market Philips should make itself a clear opposite of Braun by focussing on its unique differentiator. Philips shavers are made to work with your face. A face does not have straight lines, neither do Philips shavers.  Or to say it differently: your face does not have straight lines, why expect something different from your shaver?

Currently Philips is unfortunately not spelling out this unique differentiator. Take a look at the latest Senso Touch 3D commercial:

From the commercial: “every curve, every contour, every hair”. This could be as well a Braun commercial, no differentiation.

To really make the point and remind people why to buy Philips it should all be about the differentiator. This would my simple story board and script for the commercial:

Let me know your thoughts!