Author Archives: Julian Stubbs

I was stranded for a day in the UK on Monday, and saw first-hand London in ‘crisis’. I’m not talking about the current economic woes, but…snow. Now living in Sweden I’ve become pretty comfortable with large amounts of the cold, white stuff, and being in London on Monday, came as a bit of a shock. I’d forgotten how badly organised we Brits can be sometimes. The whole city, ten million people, came to a grinding halt, despite several days warning of cold weather. London Mayor Boris Johnson made a wonderful TV appearance early Monday morning to calm the nations capital. In a reference to the last great snowfall Britain had had 19 years earlier, when the nations entire train system was brought to its knees by ‘the wrong sort of snow’ (what’s the right sort?) Boris said ‘well, this time it’s the right sort of snow, just too much of it’! What can you say… However I have to admit London was at it’s charming best. A sort of ‘Dunkirk spirit’ prevailed with people saying things like ‘never mind, have a cup of tea, it’ll all be alright’ etc. and grown adults in the streets were having snowball fights. It made me think. I had the distinct impression that people are sick and tired of thinking about the world’s current economic worries and recession, and simply wanted a day off to enjoy themselves again! Enjoying ourselves is what gives us a feeling of real living, and when people feel that they tend to spend money. Not a bad thing at the moment. Buy Windows 7 Ultimate Buy Windows 7 Ultimate Discount Discount Cheap Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection Discount Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection Cheap Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus Buy Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus Cheap Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus

If marketing is built on the fundamentals of branding, then branding is very much built on the fundamentals of positioning. So what do we mean when we say positioning? Whether we actively think about it or not, positioning is something that influences our everyday decisions about all sorts of issues. From simply buying lunch or considering something more substantial like which make of computer to buy, we are constantly being influenced by positioning to help us make our choices. Highest quality products vs. good-enough quality, reliable vs. cutting edge innovation, cheaper vs. more expensive, bigger vs. smaller – we are constantly putting things in ‘mental boxes’. It’s all about how we position things in our mind – that’s positioning. The same applies to how we all view and position corporations. If we consider Microsoft or Apple, Volvo or Volkswagen, or even GE or Siemens people instantly have pretty clear mental pictures of what those corporate brands represent. So how do great brands attain distinct and strong positions? Today we are all deluged with media. Although the number is somewhat debated, we are all impacted by around 500 brand impressions everyday* via TV, radio, posters, magazines, newspapers, word of mouth and increasingly the internet. We are surrounded by brands competing for our attention. To help build clear brand positions in all the media noise, great brands keep their positioning simple, clear and consistent. As one example look at BMW and how they have kept a clear position and consistent focus over the last 30 years built around ‘the ultimate driving machine’. They even boil that tag line down to just one word – driving. What they are really saying is if you want a true driver’s car, then you have to put BMW on the consideration list. The tag line is there to prove why the brand is relevant to the consumer’s life. On a corporate, level look at the new positioning of Phillips, the Dutch multinational, Sense and Sensibility. On their corporate website Phillips claim they are… ‘convinced that no matter how complex and advanced an application or solution is, it should be simple to use and make sense’. Phillips is using this to bring their activities into a clear focus. So positioning can play a crucial role in shaping how the world views a company and its activities. Buy Windows 7 Ultimate Sale Windows 7 Ultimate Buy Windows 7 Ultimate Order Windows 7 Ultimate Buy Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection Buy Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection Discount Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus Discount Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus Discount Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus

The newspapers drive me mad sometimes. We are all pretty well aware that the world’s economy has some major problems to sort out at the moment. The press however seem to delight in making matters worse, and enjoy nothing more than the current ‘bad news’ feeding frenzy. When times get tough one of the areas that often suffers is marketing. This is almost entirely driven by the thought that marketing is a ‘cost’ and as such can be pruned or even deleted in tough times. With the rise of digital media we have never been in a stronger position to truly measure the value in what marketeers get back for their marketing investment. Which leads me nicely to my subject of this particular entry – effective marketing advertising that really pays off. Last week I attended, as one of the judges, the 100 Watt Advertising effectiveness awards in Stockholm, Sweden. The award is sponsored by the Swedish Advertising Association and Dagens Industri – the Swedish equivalent of the Financial Times. During September and October we sifted through the best of Swedish advertising for 2008. The work we were reviewing was to be judged firstly upon the works effectiveness at achieving the clients business targets and secondly at the ‘creativity’ employed to do this. It was very revealing to be a judge of such an event – and convinced me even more so that advertising and marketing first and foremost should deliver a greater payback than the cost. If your agency isn’t comfortable with that concept fire them. So, don’t give up investing in marketing or advertising – just demand a decent return for it. The winners details for the 100 Watt Awards can be found on the site listed below. http://www.annons.se Cheap Windows 7 Ultimate Buy Windows 7 Ultimate Sale Windows 7 Ultimate Cheap Windows 7 Ultimate Cheap Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection Order Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus Discount Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus Cheap Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus

I was recently invited to sit in as a guest on a client’s budget planning process. The company is a large, and well-known international organisation and there were around fifteen people present at the meeting representing everything from corporate communications to business unit managers. The subject got around to media spend and the subject of allocation between corporate communications and the various business areas came up as well as allocation between media channels. The debate started to get focused around ‘brand advertising’ versus ‘product advertising’. A number of people in the room, mainly from the business units, argued that they just wanted hard hitting advertising focused on features and benefits that helped them sell products. After 30 minutes or so, it started to get rather heated and eventually, I suspect to call on someone in some way neutral, I was asked to give some thoughts. This particular company is a very technically oriented organisation, and I knew that ‘branding’ is a relatively ‘new’ concept for many of the engineers who have traditionally driven it. I started out by stating that ‘corporate’ brand advertising that doesn’t actually help sell a product is actually waste of money (big grins from the engineers around the table). Equally, product advertising that doesn’t help to build the brand is equally wasteful (big smiles from the corporate communications folk). I’ve personally never seen it as an either or situation. In terms of the returns they could expect to get from their ‘brand’ advertising these should be measured not in direct sales that week, month or even year – but over the next several years. And therein lies the true value of brands – they help to sell products and services not just tomorrow – but over a number of years. Branding is a long-term process and the payback and value is equally long term. It’s interesting how few B2B brands today attempt to put an actual financial value on their brands. In the latest B2B Marketing Insights survey conducted by Gyro International the majority of marketeers who responded said they felt brands were as relevant and important in the B2B world as in B2C (business to consumer). Yet despite this only 9% value their brand on the balance sheet and only 7% measure the value of brand equity. Brands in the B2B sector are more relevant today ever before, as it’s one of the last few unexploited areas that can deliver business advantage. Most companies have already been through intense focuses on quality and production – to make them-selves as lean and efficient as possible. Supply chain and distribution has also seen some radical changes over the last ten years with the internet making e-commerce almost stronger in the B2B area than even in B2C. And with technology advantages becoming ever more difficult to find and ever more easy for competitors to replicate, marketeers need to find sustainable competitive advantages outside of the traditional comfort zone of the product sphere. That makes ’the brand’ the key area. Companies in the B2B sector have always valued and engaged in marketing – but it has been seen as a cost of sales. To view branding as something that actually puts value on the balance sheet – is another deal. The B2C world has looked at various formulas for working out that ‘value’ for some time now. Take the latest Interbrand Best Global Brands 2008 survey, which puts a monetary value on the asset of the world’s biggest brands. Not surprisingly Coca Cola came out top, with a ‘brand asset value’ of over $66 BUSD. But in the top ten are two almost purely B2B brands – GE and Intel, with values of $53 and $31 BUSD respectively. These are both companies that recognise the value that their brands can leverage in not only helping them sell their products and retain long term customers, but importantly add value to their bottom line as well. It was Intel, who recognised that differentiation by products and technology alone would not be enough. The man behind the famous Intel Inside campaign, Dennis Carter, was questioned about why a business-to-business chipmaker such as Intel would launch such an intense and expensive marketing campaign. He replied ‘In technology where products change rapidly, the brand is doubly important – more important than in packaged goods’. Not a bad quote to end with. Discount Cheap Windows 7 Ultimate Cheap Windows 7 Ultimate Cheap Windows 7 Ultimate Cheap Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus Sale Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus Order Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus

Last week I was invited to give a ‘breakfast club’ presentation to the members of the local tourist board in my home town of Sigtuna, Sweden. Very happily I said yes. I love where I live. Despite traveling a fair bit and getting to see some pretty exotic destinations, my favorite place in the whole world is right where I live. Nothing beats walking down Sigtuna high street, wandering to the small bakery and buying a doughnut (called a ‘Sigtuna munk’ locally). I arrived at 7.15 AM to the venue, a spectacular conference centre located on the outskirts of town, expecting maybe twenty or so people to attend, and walked in to find around sixty people waiting! My talk touched on the work I’ve been involved with in developing the Stockholm ‘Capital Of Scandinavia brand’. Back in medieval times Sigtuna was actually Sweden’s ‘first’ capital city, so ‘technically’ it’s also Scandinavia’s ‘first’ capital! We also had some great news to announce on the Stockholm front. Last week, in an independent survey, Stockholm was ranked 7th in a list of major European cities in terms of ‘brand strength’ and ranked at number 2 when size and brand assets are taken into consideration. A fantastic result. So, we seem to have done a good job of putting Stockholm on the map! Order Windows 7 Ultimate Sale Windows 7 Ultimate Buy Windows 7 Ultimate Buy Windows 7 Ultimate Buy Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection Discount Adobe Creative Suite 6 Master Collection Sale Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus Cheap Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus Buy Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus