Can Hummer have a Hyundai Moment?

I recently read a great blog post by Andrew McCafee on the “Illusion of Brand Control” from the Harvard Business Review blogs. Mr. McCafee studies how technology affects businesses.

In his article he cites examples of two brands. One which seeks to try and corral perceptions of its brand the other who seeks to let its brand run free.

The brand that seeks to corral the perceptions of its brand does so fairly unsuccessfully while the brand that lets it brand run free seems to find organic success. These may not be apple to apple case studies but nevertheless, the former it would seem could learn something about perception, identity and aligning business, product development and marketing strategy.

The example of the brand allowed to run wild is MIT, in which there are 11 student blogs featured on the admissions office web page. They are central to the schools communications efforts. The premise was simple. The school is confident enough that in having some of the greatest scholars of the world grace its campus, why wouldn’t they be capable of presenting a cogent dialogue on a variety of topics to the world thus demonstrating why you would want to attend MIT.

On the other side of the spectrum is Hummer.

Mr. McCafee starts his piece…

“You've probably heard by now that ‘your brand is no longer yours.’ The assertion's based on simple math. In the era of blogs, discussion boards, Facebook, Twitter, and other Web 2.0 tools, virtually everyone can get online and talk about your company and its offerings. As a result, the amount of information your marketing and PR departments can generate is only a small percentage of the total volume of content on the Internet about your firm.

What's more, if some of the external voices become as popular, or perish the thought, more popular than your official voice, then they're going to show up high in organic (as opposed to paid) search results. For example, I just typed "Hummer" into Google. The second result is the Wikipedia entry about the vehicle, and the fourth one is a site full of user-submitted photos that are not likely to please the brand's owner.”

Let’s talk about the fourth one. On that site there are 5092 submissions of people flipping the bird to passing Hummer H2s. That’s a lot of angst.



















When one thinks about Hummer’s past advertising, it often portrays young, good-looking, hip and adventurous 30-something individuals utilizing their Hummers to create their own adventures seeking out the most remote spots on earth.

Granted a great degree of Hummer's spots are automotive eye candy in shot in places like the far reaches of New Zealand. However when there are people in the ads, the folks and imagery used in Hummer’s spots are really not at all representative of the actual Hummer consumer. And these days, I don’t think there are many people in America who want to be seen in a Hummer. The people portrayed in the spots of old courtesy of Modernista! are no doubt beautifully art directed and shot. But the people in the commercials look a lot like, well the people in agencies like Modernista! And what I know about people like these is that most of them wouldn’t buy a Hummer. They’re probably more likely to buy a Mini. And the hardcore outdoor folks that you might find riding their bikes to their boutique agency are design/brand snobs and extraordinarily eco-friendly. I might personally resemble this last remark.

This is where the opportunity lies for Hummer for North America. If they align the business strategy, product development and marketing effectively they could actually carve out a nice little niche for themselves.

While current brand perception is negative, I would predict that if you dug down to the brands core you’d find perception about the brand is probably still pretty well respected for being a vehicle that can pretty much get anywhere.

With that, if Hummer plays its cards right they just might have a chance in hell at surviving. Consider developing smaller than H2-type vehicles with less bling, powered by clean diesel (the magic word is torque) and provide functional utilitarian packages aimed at various affinity groups.

This is where I wonder if Hummer can have its own Hyundai moment. Any marketer with a subscription to AdAge knows that Hyundai is the marketing darling of the industry these days and rightfully so. However it wasn’t marketing that created Hyundai’s turnaround. It was the company.

As Mark Allen Roberts said in response to the AdAge's "Marketer of the Year"article on Hyundai, “What they did brilliantly was on the front end.”

I don’t suspect Hummer will be as universally captivating as Hyundai because it will always be a niche brand but I do feel that there’s a tremendous opportunity for Hummer.

Who will be the next Bill Bernbach?

Yesterday on NPRs Marketplace with Kai Ryssdal, I listened to an interview with Director Doug Pray who talked about his film, "Art & Copy," which explores the creative forces behind some of the most famous ads of the 20th century. The film has been out since last year (Aug 2008) and was produced in conjunction with The One Club.

The film is enjoyable especially to those in the ad/marketing world. Ad people love looking at and critiquing ads and we all have our favorites (my personal favorites were Fox Sports/NBA-Alan and Jerome).

But I digress…

The interview was interesting in my mind because at one point Pray says, “Myself, Shirley, and everybody in the movie would agree that 98 percent of most advertising is pretty much garbage.” This I agree with. There’s a lot of crap work out there without a doubt and people’s filters for advertising are outstanding. Most of it is just white noise. The issue that I have is with Pray’s rationale for why there’s so much garbage out there. He continues… “A lot of businesses and certainly advertising has kinda fallen prey to this idea [that] market research and analysis and everything is what it's all about. And if you can figure exactly what the customers are already buying, then you can figure out what exactly they're going to buy, and then you know how to advertise it.”

First let’s look at the rationale for purchase decisions. Purchase decisions boil down to two fundamental things:

Needs and Wants.

There are certain things that I don’t really care about that I might need to purchase and advertising may or not have an effect on my purchase behavior. Let’s say my wife politely suggests as she gives me a kiss goodbye before I leave for work, “You might want to pick up some gum.” Read: Your breath is kickin’.

I stop at a store and am faced with a wall of chewing gum and breath mints. I’ve noticed Stride gum commercials lately and because it’s in my head I give it a shot. It’s all pretty much the same. I don’t care but advertising has done an effective job of driving my decision just by being in my sub-conscious. Gum is a category where being remembered is half the battle because for the most part, people don’t care.

Now let’s say I need waterproof rain jacket. Here is where a need and a want come together. This is a purchase I actually care about and several factors go into my purchase decision. Among them are brand, price, functionality and look. All of these things fall into the category of a quote from a previous blog post "Often what we buy is not some thing but some idea that is embodied by that thing." Because this is a product that I’ll wear and will be noticed in, I’ll fall prey to this phenomenon. Understanding where brand, price, functionality and look rank as purchase drivers is helpful but perhaps most important is understanding how much anyone cares.

I spent most of my career in advertising and I’m staunch defender of great creative and despite having been on the account service side of the business, some of my best friends are creatives, and good ones. Seriously, though, I’ve thrown down with clients on behalf of creatives I’ve worked with and have earned a good deal of respect in doing so.

One point: We should make a distinction between great, really good and good. Great should be designated as once in a lifetime… we talk about it for years. Really good means it stands out in the category and continually performs well and perhaps is imitated. Good means it basically does its job. And let’s not forget, the company and product have to stand behind the work.

The latter portion of my career has been focused more on account planning, strategy and research. So here is where I disagree with Pray. I don’t believe that the fault of bad advertising is “research and analysis.” Of course there are always instances of analysis paralysis and research that goes right to the bookshelf and we all know the story of the Herman Miller chairs. The flaw of the Herman Miller chairs research was the design of the research not the design of the chairs. At the end of the day, you get out of research what you put into it.

I approach research with the mindset of “this is what I think, we’ll see if I’m right.” If I’m wrong I’ll seek to find the value in that and chart a new course. Lately, my view is that segmenting your customers based on how much they may or may not care about any one product or category is a critical jumping off point. It’s not however “figuring out what they’re already buying” because trends move far too quickly.

In my view, research and analysis isn’t the problem. Often it’s clients who are inherently averse to risk and who wouldn’t be with the brevity of CMO tenure and accountability to shareholders in what is arguably one of the hardest disciplines to defend.

I would also argue that bad work has more to do with too much of a continued mass market approach which insures a lowest common denominator approach to creative. Clients are too fearful of disenfranchising potential customers with any creative that may push the envelope. Undoubtedly it's a numbers game which is built based on market opportunity. Clients have to show the greatest market opportunity which means the widest swath of people must be reached.

This is as opposed to accurately identifying sustainable groups of your customers and presenting to them in a manner that allows for less watered down creative. This however continues to challenge the existing models as we know it. But if networks only account for 30% of the pie things have to change soon. There’s also the distinct fact that as Bill Bernbach revolutionized the advertising world in the 60s pairing together art and copy teams which represented a shift in advertising we should also admit that we’re probably at the precipice of another shift. The question is who will be the next Bernbach?

An Introduction

Hello and welcome to my blog.

My name is Mark Boles and I am a 17 year veteran of the marketing industry in a career touching nearly every discipline from PR to advertising, direct marketing, business-to-business and research. From my early days in my career, I’ve always leaned towards strategy and less towards execution but you earn your stripes through execution. Fortunately I figured that out in time to have a fairly productive run and throughout my career what I’m most proud of is that I’ve learned a few things along the way.

This blog is an opportunity for me to espouse my wisdom on all things related to marketing. I do this largely to do a few things. The three most pertinent are to provide some insight into my marketing beliefs and philosophy, create discussion around how the marketing industry has evolved even in the very brief 17 years that I’ve been in it and to confront some personal demons with writing and legacy.

The discipline of writing to me is not easy and I say this having been the only “jock” in the family born to a family of intellectuals and academics. Oh, and a father who was a beat generation writer, published before the age of 21 who hung out with the likes of Kurt Vonnegut and Jack Kerouac. To say I have issues with writing is an understatement.

With that being said, here goes nothing.

As for the title of the blog, some will get it immediately. It might be considered a bit of an arcane pop culture reference. It comes from an old Sesame Street short where a mother gives her daughter some money and a grocery list and dispatches her to the grocery store to get a loaf of bread, a container of milk and a stick of butter.

I wanted a blog name that was unique yet relevant. I felt it was unique because it is a bit of an arcane pop culture reference that many around my age say plus or minus five years might know. I also chose it because my job as a marketing professional is to help consumers remember my client’s products and in an ideal world perhaps establish some loyalty to them.

Thanks for taking the time to check out my blog and I look forward to the discourse that I’m sure I’ll inspire.