Tom Fishburne: Brand Camp cartoonist and marketing guy

skatewear

I met a guy the other day who brought a small California company of skateboard wear called DVS to the UK.  I asked him how they approach marketing, given that their market has highly tuned BS-detectors (and are probably anti-marketing). 

He said they do very little actual marketing, except for a little print.  Most of it, he said, has to do with building street cred.  They have to live the brand inside out.  Everyone who works there is passionate about skating.  They just show up at skate festivals and just hang out and skate.  They all believe in their products because they all use them avidly. 

They also find musicians, artists, and other like-minded people and generously and continually give them free samples so that their brand is ever-present in their consumer's world (even if just in the background).  Getting free product from a cool brand is a badge for these musicians and artists (particularly when it's something new that hasn't launched yet), so often they do actually wear it (and talk about it). 

I've worked with brands that are really stingy about samples.  But, they can be so powerful.  When I worked at Haagen-Dazs, I always kept a few "free pint" coupons in my wallet to give out randomly to people I met.  People acted as if I just gave them a $100 bill (even though a pint costs $4).  Unbelievable.  I gave them out liberally to the hospital staff during the birth of our second child and I'm convinced that's why we got such a good room. 

Since method is so new in the UK, we've started a policy of being "over-generous" with anyone who bothers to email or call us, automatically sending them a bunch of free stuff (new products & t-shirts) in the hopes they help get the word out.  I think random acts of sampling go a long way.

tower of eco babel

I find many eco labels incredibly confusing (and I'm probably a lot closer to them than the average consumer).  Because there are few regulatory standards, there seem to be a lot of "eco labels of the week".  Even the standard ones are confusing, as you can see when the Vegan Society recently withdrew its certification from Ecover, because they  consider "no animal testing" to include a variety of 0.2mm long water flea. Of course, it's all quite complex and there are no easy answers.  But I think the resulting "claim race" is creating a maddeningly confusing grocery aisle.

Also, so many of the claims are awfully technical.  Many consumers don't even know what a carbon footprint is, let alone "100% post-consumer recycled content".  Or just how "biodegradable" is distinct from "compostable". 

It got me thinking that in our rush to communicate eco-friendly benefits, we're building our own eco tower of babel.  Thanks to wikipedia, I learned the root of Babel means to "confuse or confound" in Hebrew.

Ultimately, it's up to us as marketers to wade through it all and do the work for consumers.  Only pick the relevant (and honest) bits, and then explain it to consumers in a human way.  As my old manager, Helen Kurtz, used to say to our R&D scientists, "explain it to me like you're explaining it to my grandmother". 

I love how Remarkable approaches this.  Here's one of their pencil cases:

greentomatocars

Interesting concept that launched in London about a year ago.  greentomatocars is a taxi service that is decided to be as environmentally-friendly as possible.  They all drive Prius cars (and are testing out the new SuperPrius rated at a 100 mpg) and do a bunch of other stuff to offset the effects of car travel.  But the smartest part of the concept is that it's parity priced.  They keep the prices the same as regular black cabs, so they can appeal to more people.  So, it's environmental without consumer tradeoffs.  Because operating costs are lower, this business model works out even though the up-front costs are higher.

tchotchkie pepper

I attract marketing tchotchkies like lint.  Usually, they're pretty meaningless.  You could substitute any logo on the same old memory stick, yo yo, or traveler coffee mug. 

But, this one was kind of clever.  A new Mexican restaurant opened in London (a big deal in a city without many authentic Mexican options -- the last place we went literally served chips and humous).  Anyway, they have baskets at the door with what appear to be matchbooks.  On second look, they are filled with seeds to grow your own jalapeno peppers using your home compost.  What a great little way to showcase their fresh ingredient story.  And much more memorable than an oversized logo fleece.

jump start your brain

I was excited to meet one of my innovation heroes today - Doug Hall, author of books like Jump Start Your Brain and founder of the famous Eureka Ranch.  The UK Marketing Society nicely invited me to be on a panel at an event called "Doubling your Chances of Success" and Doug was the keynote.  He has been an inspiration to me ever since I read one of his books as a General Mills intern and taped this quote over my desk:

"Don't be afraid to take risks.  Corporations have an amazing array of checks, balances, and safety nets to prevent you from hitting the wall at ninety miles an hour.  Be bold and brash.  Develop a reputation for it."

Doug's message today was that we need to kill the stage gate process entirely and radically retool our innovation approach.  That our our new product hit rate is so abysmal because of our process, and that big companies can learn a lot from little companies (which innovate differently by necessity).  As he put it, "95% of all breakthroughs since WWII have come from small and mid-size companies".

This was good news to me. I gave a method case study, where I summarized our plight competing against big Goliath companies with this factoid: in 2006, our competitors spent a combined $2.8 billion in advertising.  We spent just over $3 million.  We estimate they spent a combined $15 million just on toilet paper, 5X our entire marketing budget.  Gulp.

inside the mind of the consumer

This is on a similar theme as an earlier cartoon I drew in July.  I have to remind myself sometimes that my brand is not the most important thing in a target consumer's life.  I think a lot of brand positioning statements are written as if the consumers are constantly thinking and obsessing about the brand.  When I hear the description, "brand loyalist", I envision a groupie with a logo tattooed on her forehead.

Obviously, even "brand loyalists" have complex lives completely separate from our brands.  As marketers, I think it's good to remember the actual role that we play in consumer's very human lives, and not overstep the significance of a brand of, say, "pickle relish".

I've always like the word, "inconceivable", ever since The Princess Bride.

stern on brands

We joined an interesting panel a few days ago with Sir Nicholas Stern (speaking above), author of the influential Stern Report on climate change (the first to really frame the issue in economic terms).   He offered suggestions on the role of brands and marketers in the sustainability movement. 

He said that the answer is not to expect consumers to change their behavior by becoming "monastic" (I agree a lot of the traditional "eco-brands" take this "guilt trip, wear a hair shirt" approach, which just turns off the majority). Instead, he said it's up to brands and businesses to offer up more environmentally-friendly alternatives in ways that doesn't involve sacrifice or compromise.  Instead, inspire people to act greener. Frame it instead in a positive, optimistic light. 

aqualung friendly

I had a fun consumer interaction this week.  Since our brand is so new in the UK, we decided to start answering all consumer emails ourselves in the office rather than have our consumer group in San Francisco handle them.  It just puts us more in tune with what people really think, and we don't have the time difference lag.  We plan to put in the consumer phone line right into our office soon too (hopefully in a red London phone booth), and take turns fielding calls.

Anyway, this week I got into an email discussion with a nice woman named Shona who was having trouble finding our brand in the UK.  She mentioned in passing that she would be in the US this fall traveling with her husband's band.  When I probed, it turned out that her husband is none other than Ian Anderson, founding member and lead singer/flutist of megagroup Jethro Tull.  Pretty cool. 

Anyway, Shona gave me a good excuse to post this masterful bit of Ian Anderson fluting, from a 1976 show in Tampa.  I can only hope our brand has that kind of longevity.

nice little touches

I was reading recently that the innocent brand is made up of "thousands of nice little touches".  Today, on the way to a customer meeting, I snapped this photo of the back of an ocado truck (don't worry, I wasn't doing the driving).  I like the touches on the bottom of the doors: "I'm a veggie van.  I drink biodiesel." and "I don't like fast food, so I'm speed limited."  The font is small, and I doubt many consumers will even see it.  But, for consumers like me who do, I appreciate the effort to be witty.  And, if they think through the small details, it certainly makes me think they'll handle the big ones well too.

It reminds me of the ice cream trucks when I worked at Dreyer's that said, "Driver carries no spoons" on the side.  I love the "nice little touches."

brand ego tripping

This cartoon was partly inspired by my chat with David Taylor.  He introduced me to the wonderful phrase, "brand ego tripping", which is when a brand team gets a little too full of itself and forgets why consumers liked the brand in the first place.  A brand ego trip can be dangerous, because it can lead to ill-fitting brand extensions and promotions based on the needs of the business, not any kind of real consumer insight.  Levi's suits, Colgate ready meals, Coors Rocky Mountain mineral water -- all casualties from "brand ego tripping".

I didn't pick Metamucil for anything specific to the brand.  Apologies to anyone on the brand team.  I just thought a brand of laxative and fiber supplements would make a really ridiculous example.

I included the Bunco reference after remembering a cool promotion that P&G brand Prilosec pursued, where they found and developed a niche target of Bunco players.  I thought their approach was a nice down-to-earth contrast to brand ego tripping.