Tom Fishburne: Marketoonist

jumping the shark

(to instantly license this week's cartoon, click here)

My friend Michelle introduced me to the expression, Jumping the Shark, which is used to describe "the moment of downturn for a previously successful enterprise." It comes from the fifth season of the classic American sitcom, Happy Days, when Fonzie donned swim trunks and his trademark leather jacket to perform a ridiculous water ski jump over a shark.

The guy who coined the expression describes it as "a defining moment when you know that your favorite television program has reached its peak. That instant that you know from now on...it's all downhill. Some call it the climax. We call it 'Jumping the Shark.' From that moment on, the program will simply never be the same."

Indiana Jones "jumped the shark" in the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull when Indiana was hit by a nuclear weapon blast while hiding in a lead-lined fridge.  While the fridge was hurled a great distance and everything else was obliterated, Indiana emerged unscathed. This lead to a similar expression, "Nuking the Fridge", which was one of the top buzz words of 2008.

Brands and businesses "jump the shark" and "nuke the fridge" all the time, often in a desperate attempt to reignite growth. They abandon what made them successful and drive away their most loyal consumers.

In her wonderful book, Different, Youngme Moon applies "Jumping the Shark" to product categories, which often reach a point of product proliferation where they leave their consumers behind.  Bottled water is a classic example of this.

"As these categories mature, the products within them get progressively better over time, with consumers benefiting along the way. But somewhere along the line these categories jump the shark, having undergone too many plot twists and turns for consumers to stomach any more."

Youngme describes this as "a consumption trend that I contend is one of the most significant challenges facing business today."

In the rush to maintain momentum, there is huge pressure to "jump the shark".  Jumping the shark attracts new attention and feels necessary in the game of competitive one-upmanship. But the volume of attention is far less important than the caliber of attention. And more important than grabbing fresh attention is maintaining the loyalty of those already buying.

The risk of jumping the shark isn't getting eaten by the shark. It's leaving your loyalists behind. 

brand archetypes

(to license this cartoon, click here) 

I learned the power of archetypes from Joseph Campbell's classic interview with Bill Moyers. The explore the universal themes, characters, and stories that repeat throughout history, appearing in every form of human expression from the Bible to Star Wars. These archetypes repeat because they resonate deeply with human consciousness. 

I first saw Joseph Campbell's work applied to brands at General Mills, when the Wheaties team worked hard to understand and unlock "The Hero" archetype. I then learned that TBWA/Chiat used the archetypes as part of their exploratory work with brands. 

Not surprisingly, some of the most meaningful brands have tapped universal archetypes. These brands stand for something powerful to the consumers who buy them. 

• Nike --> The Hero
• Harley Davidson --> The Outlaw
• Pampers --> The Helper
• Virgin --> The Jester
• Ben & Jerry's --> The Innocent
• Patagonia --> The Adventurer
• Charles Schwab --> The Sage
• And so on 

Marketers spend a lot of time drafting brand pyramids, positioning statements, and messaging. Most of these are wordsmithing exercises. What can be more powerful is to understand your brand archetype. Mapping your brand to an archetype forces you to choose. The best brands narrow to one or two archetypes. Without narrowing, a brand is trying to be all things to all people. It ends up standing for nothing. When brands stand for nothing, the only way it can compete is on price. 

Last week, I heard Dan Germain give a talk about innocent (the UK smoothie business where he is Head of Creative). Not surprisingly, innocent represents "The Innocent" archetype, with it's fresh-eyed approach to the beverage market. As part of the brand history, Dan shared that the brand was first called "Fast Tractor", not "innocent". They created a smoothie with a short time from field to bottle, and "Fast Tractor" reinforced that positioning. "Fast Tractor" may fit a positioning statement, but does it stand for something greater? 

Later on, they migrated to "innocent", which tapped a universal archetype. The brand emerged with a similar playbook as Ben & Jerry's, and consumers instantly knew what it meant. 

All brands have the potential to tap and leverage a universal archetype. I found some useful guidance from Olivier's Blanchard in a post called "Archetypes and Brands". He includes this exerpt from a piece from Jon Howard-Spink called "Using Archetypes to Build Stronger Brands."

"I find it more exciting to think of myself as the author of eternal brand stories than as someone who writes strategy documents and brand pyramids."

managing the brand

In the last two weeks, there’s been a lot of chatter about the role of the "brand manager" and marketing organizations generally, after Jack Neff at Ad Age previewed a Forrester research report in an article called "Why it’s time to do away with the brand manager."

"Managing a brand has always been a slightly odd concept, given that consumers are the real arbiters of brand meaning, and it's become increasingly outmoded in today's two-way world. That's why a new report is going to recommend changing the name "brand manager" to "brand advocate," and fundamentally changing marketer organizations in response to the onset of the digital age."

Denise Lee Yohn picked up this thread in a fascinating post on the CMO’s Dream team and advocated for the role of “brand operator”. David Kiley at BusinessWeek argued for the role of “brand editor” with an interesting story of the McDonalds CMO thinking of its brand as editorial. 

These musings on the role of brand manager inspired this cartoon. The role of "brand manager" implies a certain level of power and control. From inside the marketing ivory tower, it’s easy to see yourself as a puppeteer for the brand. Ultimately, though, it’s the consumers who determine what your brand means. 

Think about Stella Artois. For years, the beer carried an advertising slogan of "Reassuringly Expensive". Yet, in the UK, the common slang nickname for the beer is "wife beater" (because of its high alcohol content). Patrons are even known to order a "wife beater" for short in the pub. Years of marketing position statements and heavy advertising couldn’t shake the nickname that consumers gave the beer. Stella finally dropped the "Reassuringly Expensive" slogan in 2007 and are the in the midst of repositioning themselves, including the launch of a lower strength beer to try to counter the meaning attributed by consumers. 

It’s important to remember that most consumers have probably never even heard the term “brand manager” yet alone think about the brand in the same way that marketers do. 

Rather than draft brand positioning statements in language that has meaning for other marketers, how inspiring it would be to talk in terms than real consumers can understand. Better still, to turn it into a actual two-way conversation with consumers.

At the DO Lectures last month, Duke Stump gave a remarkable talk about creating something he called "bonfire brands." In his first day as CMO at Seventh Generation, he addressed the office and said: 

“I don’t know anything about marketing or branding. Here’s what I do believe. The purpose of what we’re here for is to optimize the resonance and relevance for those we serve. That’s how I hold this whole term of marketing. What’s really going to make us great is if we create a bonfire brand. A brand that people are actually drawn to. Where there’s a conversation. And they’re partaking in your conversation. They’re evangelists for your brand. They’ll defend your brand. They’re also your most ardent critics. It’s a beautiful thing when you can sit around a campfire with those you serve and they can tell you everything that’s great and everything that’s not so great. Instead of holding it as a brand, hold it as a bonfire.”

the value proposition

I came across a Brandweek article called "Enough with the Value Messages Already" and it made me think of the song-and-dance that many businesses are doing to demonstrate value nowadays.

The primary knee-jerk reaction for brands in the recession has been to radically drop price (either permanently or through deep discounting).  With many retailers ramping up private label "switch and save" promotions, the pressure is even stronger.  But this approach can create a lot of long-term damage and cheapen the brand.  It's hard to ever unwind it once you're on that path.

Others have adopted a platform reminding consumers what good value they already bring. There are some good examples out there, but some of it feels a little desperate to me, particularly now that this type of message has become such a predictable bandwagon.  And some have applied tacky window-dressing to make their brands appear to have more value than they really do.

I think the only long-term solution is to ensure that your brand is truly meaningful.  I've said this before, but I think the recession will be a litmus test for meaningful brands.  If a brand is close enough to private label that consumers will easily trade down, it's time to re-evaluate what is being offered.

In other words, you're not going to out-private-label private-label.

trading up-manship

I remember learning about "trading up" when I worked on the Häagen-Dazs brand a few years ago.  Our VP was a big fan of the book Trading Up, which described how middle-market consumers felt affluent and were starting to trade up up higher premium products.

We baked "trading up" into our brand strategy.  Afterall, we weren't just a premium brand, we were a superpremium brand (ice cream is one of the few categories where superpremium is legally defined - fun fact for today).  Not only was superpremium more profitable, it was growing.  Consumers were willing to pay more for products with stories, with ethics, with higher quality.

I started going to natural products shows and realized there was a whole exploding world of superpremium products, many pushing the bounds of how much premium consumers were willing to pay.  I remember one brand calling itself "ultra superpremium", another "masstige".  I was struck by the one-upmanship.  It seemed like "trading up" applied to brands as well as consumers.  

It made me wonder if brands were juicing products with more premium than consumers really wanted.  Last year, I cracked up seeing a $40 bottle of water decorated with Swarovski Crystals. 

This dynamic has been on my mind lately, as consumers seem to be "trading down" to value in droves.  I heard someone describe a shopping bag from LIDL (a big European discounter) as this year's Anya Hindmarch bag. 

This environment is a litmus test for brands that are truly meaningful.  Rather than trade up, brands need to trade deep.

after green

John Grant prompted this cartoon idea recently when he shared an anecdote that a client had posed this very question to an agency John knew.

This is the end result of many companies and brands treating sustainability solely as a marketing benefit, not as an underlying business practice.  For years, many companies have given their agencies "green briefs" to find something green to talk about.  This explosion in greenwashing makes "green" feel like a fad.  And we all know fads come and go.

Which is sadly ironic, given that sustainability is a much deeper commitment than, say, promising a low carb lifestyle.

By coincidence, my mother-in-law asked a similar question over dinner the other night: "when is green going to be over?"  She didn't mean trying to live more sustainability.  She meant the green marketing noise level.  She voiced some of the green fatigue I imagine that a lot of consumers are feeling.  They are ready for companies to talk about something else.

All of this is a commentary on how companies talk about sustainability.  Which is totally separate from the actual positive progress on sustainability that many companies and organizations are making.  True progress is being tainted by bad marketing.

It's a complicated road to navigate for marketers and anyone working in sustainability.  I found John's own handbook, The Green Marketing Manifesto, a good place to start.

truth in labeling

I love going to factories.  Putting on the hard hat and lab coat and seeing where the magic happens.  It makes me feel like Willy Wonka.  Massive humming machines.  Thousands of containers whizzing by on conveyer belts.  Ice cream plants are particularly cool.

But, the inner workings of a plant always seem like a stark contrast from the persona put across on the label.  Particularly if the brand has any kind of provenance.  Ingredients just don't look as premium when you see them in jumbo totes.  The "family recipe" doesn't seem so homey when it's being blended by a guy wearing a beard net.

A few years ago, I helped plan a Food Network special with Haagen-Dazs, and it was a real challenge finding a way to film in the plant that kept the premium cache.

Anyway, I was listening to a talk by Malcolm Gladwell on TED (I'm totally addicted to the TED talks, btw), and he was tellilng the story of spaghetti sauce in the US.  Actually a pretty riveting story.  At one stage, he talked of one brand connoting the old-world values even though it was really being made in a plant in New Jersey. 

It reminded me of that whole contrast, and made me think it would be funny if a label told the "real" story, from the vantage point of the producer.  Instead of an old-world grandmother stirring a saucepot, a guy in a beard net.

emotional brands

My friend Eric likes to say that there are no low-interest categories, only low-interest brands (which is why he looked to household cleaning when he decided to start method). 

On every brand team I've joined, we've spent some time "climbing the benefit ladder" from product benefits to emotional benefits, trying to mine some emotional insight that will cause consumers to give our brand their undying loyalty. 

I've always enjoyed these sessions, but also find them really funny.  It's just so rare in the business workplace to talk about emotional issues at all.  There's something ridiculous about sitting around a corporate conference table talking about the guilt experienced by a time-stressed mother of three.  And why this guilt can only be sated by our brand of frozen broccoli-with-cheese-sauce.

I've been thinking about emotional brands lately, and it inspired this cartoon. 

It also reminded me a bit of this cartoon I drew a while back on brand loyalty.

how to come up with a product name

An old colleague emailed me recently to ask if I'd ever done a cartoon on product naming.  She was helping a friend start a naming company called Spark.  Good name for a naming company.

Anyone, I was surprised to discover that I'd never covered product naming.  I have certainly been in lots and lots of ridiculous naming sessions over the years, but for some reason had never turned those into a cartoon.

So, Janine, this one's for you.

eco claim arms race

A few weeks ago, I was lucky to meet Michael Braungart (who co-wrote the thought-provoking book Cradle to Cradle about ecological product development).  He helped expand our thinking about eco responsibility to being less about one attribute or another, and more about a holistic approach of thinking through the past, present, and future of every product. 

In the group discussion, it came up that someday environmental responsibility won't be a marketing position, it will be an aspect of product quality in each and every product.

Until then, we're in a really confusing stage where just about any product can claim some level of eco-friendliness. For example, many brands have been cutting back on packaging for years.  The reason was margin improvement, but now those projects can be touted as environmentally driven.

The next time I trolled the supermarket, I was really struck by some of the confusing eco claim one-up-manship.  So many products were suddenly trumpeting one eco claim or another, and much of seemed ridiculous, confusing, or disingenuous.  Like personal care products that are "92.4% Organic", even when most of the product making up that percentage is water.

It reminded me of an arms race.  And inspired this cartoon.