Tim Youngman - The ITV logo change and brand positioning

Every industry has quirks and things that to them are massively important but seem minute to the rest of society. I have managed to end up in an industry which has more than its fair share. In marketing we spend hours and days worrying and discussing about even the smallest changes to product taglines. It might sound bizarre to you but if you are the head of marketing for Ronseal and you wanted to change “it does exactly what it says on the tin” you would have to jump through more hoops than a seal at Seaworld.

One of the reasons I love my industry so much is this relative importance placed on things that to the causal observer seem so small but in reality do actually matter a lot. For example much as been made of the recent change to the logo of online auction house e-bay. Did you notice it, probably not, but it lead to one of my favourite tweets regarding a change which simply read “surely it’s just been on a diet”.

So here are some quotes regarding an upcoming re-brand “The rebrand is about cementing the relationship in viewers”, “The logo is a form of human handwriting. It’s curvy and warmer than we have been in the past and in comparison with competitors feels distinct and true to us.” That, dear readers, came from ITV group marketing and research director Rufus Radcliffe talking about a re-brand of the ITV logo happening in January.  

January will see the first major rebrand of ITV since 2006 when you will see it drop the “1” and revert back to simply “ITV”. They are also changing the logo, as the quote gives away, to a new curvy style whose colours will change according to the tone of the programme it is promoting. So keeping it current it might be brown and green when promoting IACGMOOH.

But why is this important and what’s the point. Well ITV has been through and come out the other side of a very difficult period in its history. Only a few years ago it was struggling against the growth of satellite and cable television channels, the internet and a reduction in ad rates. Fast forward to today and ITV is in good health. It increased revenues by 4pc to £1.57bn in the nine months to 30 September, thanks to sales from its production arm, ITV Studios, which rose by a fifth to £498m, helped by the success of hit shows such as Downton Abbey.

The re-brand allows ITV to clearly position itself against its rivals, nicely described by Mr Radcliffe as: “Being at the heart of popular culture is the purpose behind the ITV brand. The BBC’s is to educate and entertain; Channel 4’s is a mission with mischief”. I was most pleased to see that they did not spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on consultants to do this but trusted their own internal creative team to come up with the goods, an unfortunately rare decision when these things occur.

So this may not even register with you or you might raise a slight flicker of acknowledgement when the logo changes in January. However to some of us even if we don’t like to new logo we admire the thought and reasoning behind it and hope that it helps to continue the turnaround in a national institution.

Tim Youngman is head of digital marketing for Archant follow him on twitter @timyoungman

Tim Youngman – Starbucks, Tax Avoidance and the art of ethics and brand positioning

One of the most interesting recent stories from a brand management point of view is the current furore regarding tax avoidance. Three companies in particular have been singled out for attention, Google, Amazon and Starbucks. Senior management from all three companies last week had to face a very public grilling from the Public Accounts Committee over the amount of tax they paid. To put some numbers behind this Starbucks had UK sales of £398m but paid zero corporation tax. Google had sales of £395m and paid £6m tax and Amazon had sales of £3.3bn paying £1.8m tax.

You may well be shaking your coffee cups right now but all of this is perfectly legal, via the loopholes in our tax system. International companies can move profits around between territory bases. For example Google’s European headquarters is based in the Republic of Ireland with its advertising team based and so it pays its main tax requirements there.

This situation has highlighted a real competitive advantage global companies have. Andy Street, managing director of John Lewis stated in an interview last week regarding Amazon   “There is less money to invest if you are giving 27pc of your profits to the Exchequer,” “Clearly, if you are domiciled in a tax haven you’ve got much more [money]. They [Amazon] will out invest and ultimately out trade us. And that means there will not be a tax base in the UK.” Strong stuff but all true.

I have slightly more sympathy for Starbucks and Amazon on this than I do Google. Amazon does employ over 2,250 people in the UK and uses UK companies its fulfilment chain. Likewise Starbucks employs more than 8,500 people in the UK and plan to grow this by another 5,000 based on outlet launches. Google, with no physical product, employs considerably less. But for me the most interesting side of this once again is the impact on brand positioning.

Compared with Google and Amazon, Starbucks has positioned itself around being a fair community focussed business. Starbucks has responded to all of this by posting defences to its actions to its blog with posts by its UK MD, Its CFO and also Howard Schultz its worldwide chairman, president and CEO.

If you look at the comments against these statements many use the words “responsibility” and “community”, words used in Starbucks own mission statement. It has used these as a core part of its brand positioning and its customers in part have bought into this. Many of the posts are from customers so upset by this perceived change in ethics that they say they will not purchase again.

There is a big difference between a few people upset enough to post comments on a blog to actually loosing customers, and so sales, on a large scale but I suspect its brand image has been tainted, probably more so than Google, because of its choice of brand positioning. This is not a column about the rights and wrongs of this as you are capable of making your own minds up. However if your brand and brand following is based on certain ethics, the lesson is you better make sure your business follows them from top to bottom in all areas. I look forward to seeing Starbuck next brand marketing and PR activities with interest.

Tim Youngman is head of digital marketing for Archant follow him on twiiter @timyoungman

The Argos Catalogue - Branding opportunity or part of print history

As I child, I remember thoughts at this time of year turn to what you would like at Christmas. For inspiration there was one all encompassing source, the Argos catalogue. Argos first introduced its hefty tome in 1973 and at its peak 20 million copies of the biannual publication were printed. This is now set to change as part of a £300 million modernisation plan announced by its new CEO John Walden.

The announcement covers a five year plan involving spending £100 million in each of the next three years with an aim to increase sales from £3.4 billion to £4.5 billion by 2018. The plan is wide ranging and includes the closure of 50 stores and the relocation of 25 more as leases expire over the next five years. The stores themselves will change as well. The focus will still be on having a strong retail presence but used more as collection hubs and for customer service. Customers will be driven to using mobile devices and in-store wi-fi to order online instead of the laminated catalogues and little pens and paying in store after queuing up.

Argos recently announced that multi-channel sales now account for 51% of its total sales with 7% coming from mobile alone. Considering its sales figures are in the billions that is a tipping point in terms of volume coming from the web rather than the high street. Argos in my opinion is one of the pioneers and leaders of e-commerce in the UK. They were one of the first to allow customer reviews on their own product lines on its website. Its introduction of a click and collect and online reservation system again massively increased it online sales helping it to the position it is today.

So from a sales point of view I completely see why they are doing this and reacting to the change in customer activity. They will no doubt continue to innovate online and invest in digital channels and grow both the revenues and profits because of that strategic belief and investment. However I have a nagging worry from a branding point of view.

The new CEO has said it would be ‘foolish’ to pull the main catalogue now as 85% of customers still use it before buying. But he also admitted that it may decline ‘precipitously’ as sales shift online. Some commentators have said that it helps it move away from the risk of being seen outdated but I think that’s naive. The catalogue is, I’m sure, expensive and a pain to produce. Its place in our homes though is branding most retailers would kill for.

In the next few weeks you will all be inundated with glossy mags from supermarkets and other brands trying to get mindshare and table space. The Argos catalogue sits as a reminder of its place as a warehouse of everything you might need. If they stop the catalogue all together that little, albeit very weighty, reminder in your homes goes and then they have to rely on planned media campaigns and people walking past the stores to get them to use them.  Argos has already proved itself as a digital pioneer and leading e-commerce offering with incredible and growing online sales. I hope it continues though to think of its catalogue as part of its distribution and marketing mix and not part of an outdated history without benefit.

Tim Youngman is head of digital marketing at Archant follow him on twitter @timyoungman

Celebrity endorsement – from Josiah Wedgewood to Lance Armstrong

Here’s some history for your dear readers. Did you know that one of the first people to pioneer celebrity endorsement was Josiah Wedgewood way back in the 1760’s? He actively promoted the fact that his pottery was used by Royalty to add to the perceived value of the products he sold. Once Queen Charlotte started using his wares he immediately called himself “Potter to Her Majesty” and increased his prices for the nobility. He then lowered his prices for the middle class but the Royal stamp of approval on certain ranges meant he could charge a premium.

From that simple but brilliant piece of marketing insight we can fast forward over 250 years to a world where celebrity endorsement is now the norm. Today Hollywood film stars promote luxury goods for millions and often low cost goods in the Far East so long as they are paid enough and also given a guarantee that the ads will not appear in the West to tarnish their reputation. Today a new breed of television “celebrities” such as those from The Only Way Is Essex are paid “low” wages and told they can expect to gain large on photo deals and product endorsements.  I suspect Josiah would probably be caught between pride and shame at how far his initial concept has gone.

However history also teaches us that although we tend to put celebrities on a pedestal they can often fall off and, if closely associated with a product or service, can damage that as well. High profile celebrities can make lots of money from brands wanting to be associated with them. David Beckham has made far more money from his product endorsements than he has ever made from actually kicking a ball. However for every Beckham there is also an OJ Simpson or a Tiger Woods. High profile celebrities with big product endorsements whose sponsors disassociated themselves as quickly as possible when things turned in their private lives.

In the last week we have seen sponsors finally start to desert Lance Armstrong. Even Nike, whom he has worked with since 1996, cancelled agreements and even using the strongly worded press release stating: “…has misled Nike for over a decade”. This shows the scale of the issue with Armstrong as they stood by Tiger Woods when his personal life exploded in 2009 when other brands left him. Within hours of the Nike announcement the cycle company Trek and brewers Anheuser-Busch also cancelled with more following. To put a sense of value to this Nike alone was worth and estimated £4.6m a year to Armstrong.

Unfortunately there are no hard and fast lessons here. Our fascination with celebrities means that their endorsement will continue to sell products and services. So while that is the case, brand and service owners will continue to pay them in the hope it will help them grow their bottom line.  However even those who once seemed beyond reproach can have hidden issues that can bite those who closely associate with them. Armstrong is not the first example and he will not be the last.

Tim Youngman is head of digital marketing for Archant follow him on twitter @timyoungman

Animee and a beer for women - a lesson in product targeting and gender neutrality

In a week when Adnams was voted into the list of the UK’s coolest brands I thought it only right that I dedicate this week’s column to the subject of beer. This is not a shameful attempt to solicit free samples from those fine local producers Woodfordes, Greene King and Adnams but a genuine interest in the closure of a beer brand.

Before any female readers turn the page, this column is also all about you! A question to start with then. How many of my female readers have heard of the beer brand Animee? Any of you with your hands up I will ask the question did you actually try it? Animee was actually a brand of beer created by Molson Coors designed specifically for women. It was launched last July and backed by a £2 million ad campaign specifically targeting women. Fourteen months later the brand was pulled.

The reasons behind the launch were clear. According to recent research 77% of women say that they ‘never’ or ‘very seldom’ drink beer with only 13% of beer serves in the UK attributed to women. You can compare that to 33% in the Republic of Ireland and 44% in Spain. So in a market that has suffered from falling sales at public houses and the growth of home drinking fuelled by supermarket price promotion sales, any growth opportunity has to be explored.

Of course by saying that this beer is for women you immediately make the statement that it’s not for men who make up the vast proportion of beer consumption in the UK. Likewise, by creating a brand that is particular to the smaller purchasing segment, it has to work very hard to make inroads in that segment and will not attract sales from the bigger consuming segment i.e. men. Suddenly the £2 million marketing budget does not seem that big.

Interestingly it seems that beers that take a non-gender approach to branding and marketing have managed to attract a following. Peroni, for example, reports that it has a strong female following and attributes it to its brand positioning of Italian cool versus lads down the pub. Molson Coors themselves as part of the announcement of closure noted that its own brands Coors Light and Carling Zest attracted a higher proportion of women drinkers without even trying because they were gender neutral in their advertising. In the case of both Peroni and Zest the advertising included both men and women and was more aspirational and inclusive than for example the Carlsburg “Probably….” campaigns which perfectly targets its chosen market demographic.

So will this current failure mean that brewers will stop scratching their heads coming up with beers targeted at women, probably not. I suspect though that the lessons being learnt that creating a beer that is brewed and marketed as being great for both sexes might be.

Tim Youngman is head of digital marketing for Archant follow him on Twitter @timyoungman

Waitrose and Twitter - A lesson in PR or a lesson in brand management?

One of the more amusing stories in the last week came from the middle class bastion that is Waitrose. On Monday it decided to ask its twitter followers to complete the sentence “I shop at Waitrose because…#WaitroseReasons”. I am sure that some well meaning young marketing exec had been at a conference about social media and sat in workshops about engagement; brought that back and thought this was a great idea. The purist in me would completely agree with him, however the old cynic in me of 20 years hard experience thought light blue paper and stand well back and duly the firework exploded.

This spread quickly giving us another example of why this is the nation that gave the world Monty Python and the Goons. My favourite responses were: “I shop at Waitrose because it makes me feel important and I absolutely detest being surrounded by poor people” and the all time classic “I shop at Waitrose because I was once in the Holloway Road branch and heard a dad say ‘Put the papaya down Orlando!’”

Within the storm of amusing asides there were positive as well as negative comments which would have pleased Waitrose but most of the negative ones were based on the clear perception that Waitrose is expensive and middle class. I suspect the reaction was quite galling to key executives. Particularly to Waitrose managing director Mark Price who announced in May that it was going to spend “tens of millions of pounds” to price match Tesco and back this with a major television campaign in attempt to show its value compared with competitors.

Many have argued that there is no such thing as bad PR, however there is if it reinforces a popular perception that you are trying hard and spending good money to dispel. For me this issue is not about the gags or whether it’s been good or bad publicly. It’s actually about the bigger question of what is wrong with being perceived as middle class and expensive if that is your core audience. 

Let me give you an example from America of the fast food chain Chick-fil-A. You might not have heard of it but last year it had sales in excess of £2.5bn. This year it also caused a major storm in the US when its president told a North Carolina Baptist website that the company supported the “biblical definition of marriage”. Cue massive debate about its anti-gay marriage stance. To help understand why he said this, the company was stared by the Presidents father to run on “biblically based principles”, donates millions to Christian charities and closes all stores on a Sunday. Although this stance made it universally unpopular with a vast majority of the US population it gained massive support from its core audience of Southern Right Wing Christian Republicans so much so that its restaurants struggled to cope with demand for the following month.

There lies the example of one of the most important principles of brand management. It does not matter if you are not universally well liked by everyone, or if people have a different perception to reality. It’s about making sure that you drive patronage and loyalty from your chosen target market and that might mean allowing certain perceptions to stay if the end result is keeping your profitable customer base happy in their choice of supermarket.

Tim Youngman is head of digital marketing for Archant, follow him on twitter @timyoungman

How to engage your customers? Social Media, UX, Content Markerting - all of the above please!

From time to time I am asked to present at conferences on topics on anything from the newspaper industry to digital to marketing and media. I like to think that I am asked because of the high quality of content and presentation style that enthrals my audiences, at least that’s what I tell myself. Next week I am hosting an event for the Norfolk Chamber of Commerce entitled “Engaging Customers - Using technology and social media to grow your business through content marketing and customer care”. Under this expansive title will see speakers from local agencies to national brands such as Dell and King of Shaves share experiences of how they have used social media and technology to grow their businesses and businesses they work for.

As I was creating my introduction presentation it struck me how different customer engagement is from 10 years ago and even 3 years ago and how much of that is down to speed of change. If you are eating at a national chain restaurant and have an issue how many people have not just complained to the local staff but also tweeted the chain to complain at the same time? How many people now use the airlines twitter feeds at airports as a more reliable source of information about delays and issues than the information boards?

Customer engagement however is much more than dealing with complaints. Engaging with your customers to create and build customer loyalty is far more important to brands in the longer term. Understanding that consumers now have more complicated needs that include the desire to be recognised, share opinions and form groups around those opinions and interest all facilitated and grown by the rise of social media brings new challenges to businesses both big and small.

Some businesses have reacted to this by engaging with customers via social media, others by making their online presence more user friendly and others offering value add in the form of useful content for their target consumers. The really clever businesses of course do all of these things within an integrated strategy targeted at delivering growth through customer engagement and retention.

Many companies are already doing this and some are going further by rewarding customers who actively engage with them. Tesco for example have recently run a trial where users could get double clubcard points when they liked, shared or bought products on its facebook page.  Likewise online retailer play.com is looking at how it can reward customers who promote it and its offers on social networks.

Of course to any business there is a difference in value between simply sharing or consuming some of your content related to your product offering or following or liking you compared with actually parting with hard cash. The effect though is the same, that customers can and want to engage with brands and now can do so in more complex and instant ways that businesses need to understand and react to.

That pace of change is not going to slow down and will increase as customers push harder and businesses look to exploit new ways to engage and build loyalty and ultimately growth. Sharing experiences on how to exploit these new trends will become even more important so I suspect next week will be busy!

Tim Youngman is head of digital marketing for Archant follow him on twitter @timyoungman