Measuring Brand Equity: Twinings

Yesterday morning I visited the Twinings HQ in Andover for a session of ‘sharing and leveraging experiences’ with various members of their International Markets team. Twinings is part of Associated British Foods (ABF) and is, at the moment, one of ABF’s star companies in terms of marketing.

As a B2C product, Twinings do a lot of promotional marketing in order to connect with consumers and ultimately change their buying behaviour. This promotional marketing includes trade shows, shop floor sampling, coupons, and competitions. Sounds like common sense, doesn’t it? But how can you be sure that all the money you spend on promotional activity is actually having a positive effect on your profit?

About 2 years ago Twinings decided that they needed to start measuring the return on investment of promotional activities. Comments such as ‘oh well, we’ve always done this trade show so it must bring value to the business’ were no longer cutting the mustard.

Twinings now spend an enormous amount of money on buying data and information about their different consumers and markets so that they can perform both pre and post evaluations of each promotional activity. The post evaluations include short term uplift, long term uplift and price elasticity (when price isn’t the driver of the sale – the price can be high and could continue to increase but people still buy it because of the brand equity and the relationship the consumer has with the brand). They have a dedicated promotional evaluation team and rely heavily on the feedback and sales reports from their sales teams. It really struck me how market insights and data lie at the centre of developing a more sophisticated, efficient and measurable marketing approach. I’d like to force this fact on people who believe marketing is just making a pretty advert and formatting slides!

It’s true that insights and data are vital in marketing as they can demonstrate the value of your marketing in numbers and figures (directors love this). These are the tangible measurables of marketing. With branding, and the relationship the consumer has with a product, things become much more intangible but are still important.

Intangible effects of good brand equity could be ‘I like to buy Twinings tea because it shows other people that I have good taste’ or ‘I buy Twinings because I like the look of the packaging in my cupboard’. How can you measure that?! It’s very difficult but it still impacts on sales and growth. I spoke with the Nordic Region General Manager who was actually initially employed to embed the more measured approach to the company marketing, and he is now keen for Twinings to implement a way of measuring brand equity and its effects on consumers. Good luck!

Food for thought:

Doing something is pointless if you aren’t going to measure it.

Nothing changes if nothing is measured.

Eat Wild

www.eat-wild.co.uk/

Eat Wild is an enterprise of two parts: first and foremost it is a mobile catering unit supplying premium wild meat and game at country shows and other outdoor events (including London's 2012 Olympics). Eat Wild has also opened as a small restaurant in the heart of the Cotswold town of Cirencester.

With a loyal following on Instagram of over 2,000 - we stumbled upon this little gem of a brand and went to check out the newly opened restaurant for ourselves.

The restaurant space is on a street front with a big window  - we opted for a table at the front. The service was informal and friendly which, along with the quirky decor, reflected the whole vibe of the Eat Wild dining experience. It's a small space (max. 25 people) but has lots of character with 'funky' taxidermy pieces, (the stuffed squirrel was a fave) a wall-mounted, partially dissembled piano-come-bottle-shelf and a pet fish called Brian Blessed (the result of a Facebook competition - we like!)

The menu is brief, seasonal and locally sourced - with meat sourcing rarely straying over the Gloucestershire border. In the end we went for the pulled pork burger, willie's chilli consisting of pulled venison (yum) and buttermilk chicken with rosemary fries. The food came out promptly and the presentation gave off a real 'safari' game feeling with the use of old enamel camping gear. The food was cooked well and was delicious leaving us with no room for their amazing Sundaes! (It's also worth pointing out that a Wild burger + rosemary fries meal cost £8.00 - hardly breaking the bank).

What Eat Wild have done is created an authentic product/concept that is well-delivered. The product is infused with the unique personality of the brand. The cool/hyper-styled/informal tone is consistent across all of their messaging: decor, service, website, signage and of course, their social media which makes eating at Eat Wild a really engaging experience.

The restaurant was full and buzzing by the time we took our last mouthfuls. The bill was seen to and our first experience at Eat Wild came to an end...definitely will not be our last.

Abandon your table manners and Tesco's chicken immediately - eating Wild is the way to go.

Case Study: The Londoner

First of all everyone: acquaint yourselves with the Facebook page belonging to today's case study, a blogger: The Londoner. (this is not a sponsored post. sigh.)

Here I presume to list 5 reasons why this lady has a following of nearly 54,000 people.

1. She's aimed for a big crowd:
Rosie has chosen to blog about things that appeal to a huge number of people: fashion, travel and food. These are all cultural big-hitters (anything 'lifestyle' is generally a winner) but, while not all brands have the luxury to sell such things, anyone can apply the basic wisdom to their own strategy.

What we should learn from this:
Gauge which elements of your brand message appeal to a prospective majority. Then use these as touch-points in your SM strategy. E.g. If your brand sells garden furniture, you might identify: summertime, family/social occasions and outdoor activities as your key hooks. If you sell fitness holidays you might identify: exotic locations, current fitness trends and healthy food as your hooks. See?

2. She gives a little to receive a lot:
Rosie hardly ever writes a post without an accompanying photo. This adds immediate interest to all her information thus making it easy to ingest. But vice-versa, she makes her content work for her: lots of her photos include a bait-link to her blog on her website. This exposes her monetised url to a social demographic thus increasing traffic, SEO and advertising impressions. AKA - rakin' in the chips.

What we should learn from this:
Make sure wherever possible you can add a visual element to your content. Don't just slap up a photo to tick this box though - oh no, my friend - your visual content must comply with points 1 and 5. i.e. - it must leverage popular emotive hooks (point 1) as well as appear engaged in the message it's delivering (point 5).

3. She writes amusing captions for her photos:
 Many of Rosie's posts include puns or playful references to popular culture.

What we should learn from this:
Well, this.

4.She shares photos from Instagram:
This means Rosie's Instagram account is linked to her Facebook so that, at her choosing, she can post a picture simultaneously to 2 separate social networks while directing the combined following of both to her website. 3 birds; 1 stone.

What we should learn from this:
It doesn't work all the time - people use different networks for different things - but, often, once a formula has been worked out as to what types of content can 'do the double', it is an administrative masterstroke that can save you precious minutes everyday while allowing you to drive traffic from multiple networks.

5. It always seems like she has a good time creating and posting her content:
Rosie is always having fun. It looks like it's her job to have fun - which is fun to follow.

What should we learn from this:
This is key - if SM output has a poor energy behind it, this percolates through invisible gaps in the strategy and, online, you'll be unmasked quicker than you can say 'sod this'. You have to have an achievable, realistic strategy that keeps you inspired. Your brand might not be about having fun - it might be about selling digital consultancy services (oop, guilty) - but there will always be some way you can develop a vibrant SM personality. If you employ a staff of people, your work-culture is a great place to start with an SM strategy. Create a buzz in the office and relay it on your social networks.

NB: The above tips are really helped along if you/your team also happen to be as good-looking as Rosie.

Cultural References in Social Media

Today, our cultural references come from some fairly absurd places (TOWIE being one of the most disconcerting) but nevertheless a cultural phenomenon, once coined, has the strength and power to pervade our everyday lives, penetrate through to our deepest levels of consciousness and earn Buzzfeed millions.

Who doesn't have some inkling of what a 'selfie' is? Who wouldn't know the origin of the hashtag #letitgo?  (If you are genuinely perplexed on these points, just go back to sleep). You don't even have to watch the stuff - I don't own a TV but I am alarmingly well-versed on the status of Lydia Bright's relationship with Arg (so over btw but a reunion would be totes emosh). But, despite everyone in the stratosphere knowing about these things, on social media, it becomes a clever secret.

As people, we are sometimes remarkably simple beings and the perception of a shared experience makes us feel really, really good. It reassures us of our place in the world - makes us feel plugged in and part of the unfolding universe. Acknowledging references to our popular culture makes us feel part of a shared identity; gives us the sense of psychological community (which, Freud will tell us, stimulates the pleasure principle in our brains). And it just feels good, ok?

So, when a brand puts out a post about their product and makes clever reference to something in popular culture (by clever I don't mean so covert that people will miss it but rather that the reference is well thought out in connection with the content of your post) PEOPLE WILL LIKE IT.
When referring to popular culture, brands usually do so with some level of irony or parody and browsers sense the tone, get the reference and hit like to reassure themselves (and others) that they're on the inside.

People who like a post like this are doing the digital equivalent of a smug little nod. 

What their little thumbs-up icon is saying is: 'Hey guys, I get what you're doing and I like it *wink*'. 

What it also says to the person's  friends is: 'Isn't this just too rich for words? You do get it, don't you?'

It makes them feel good and it increases engagement with your content. Result. Everybody wins.

So my suggestion is to read. lots. all the time. read, read, read. Don't actually WATCH Made in Chelsea - just read the bloody papers. Channel your inner-sponge: soak that shit up. You need to have a firm grasp of today's popular culture in order to make it on social networks.

In summary: there has never been a more important time to know all of Disney's song lyrics.

Language and Branding: 'A rose by any other name would smell as sweet'.

Let's assess young Juliet's assertion that 'a rose by any other name would smell as sweet'. In nature - yes, this appears to be the truth (although, if we're getting technical, intensely farmed roses have no smell at all and therefore a rose called 'Dutch Beauty' might not smell as sweet as 'Ethiopian Sunset' but bless her, she wasn't to know that.)

But I digress, is the same statement true when applied to branding a product/service? Absolutely not.

Let's all think of a high-end, luxury villa on Lake Como. Let's call it 'Villa Romeo'.... There are white washed walls, stone courtyards with iron tables and a dappled path that takes you through the rose gardens down to the lake's edge...

Ok, enough of that - which slogan sounds better:

'Lakeside Luxury'
or
'Como'n join us.'

And here is where our darling, naive Juliet got it tragically wrong - the 'name' (or whatever other branding you attach to a product) really, really influences how sweet it smells.

Language is enormously fluid and marketers must try and leverage the popular associations that words produce in the minds of those browsing. With people increasingly finding meaning in symbolic representations of things rather than actual things themselves (think about every cup of coffee you ever saw on instagram) it becomes clear that representation - the 'name' or branding we give our products matters more than ever when it comes to winning interest and people's custom.

So, when it comes to putting out material about your brand, consider what language best represents you and will convince an uncommitted audience that you're the real deal. Whether your language is colloquial, formal or clever - consider the tone and your choice of words. Be aware of 'trending' words and phrases (think poor Gretchen of Mean Girls trying to coin 'so fetch') and employ them carefully, ironically or as applicable. A good grasp of language and it's power makes for a brand that exudes confidence, style and self-awareness: traits that inspire confidence in those with zee cash.

Let it never be said: 'Tis but thy name that is my enemy'.

#Branded

My old English teacher would have a heart attack if he saw how many times I use the word 'brand' on this website. But I don't like the other options that the microsoft office 'synonyms' funtion offers me.. 'sort', 'kind', 'variety', 'product' (product features a lot too, but to mean something quite different - funny how words do that isn't it? Takes me straight back to my semiotics lecture. More on that later).
The point is, everything is now a brand. I literally can't refer to my work without the word brand in every sentence.

To demonstrate: some peculiar things which have been developed as brands:

People:
Not least surprising are people like Katie Price and the Dalai Lama. Forget keeping up with the Kardashians, ima get my daily tweets from the Ashram of Serenity and Bright Light, India y'all!

On a serious note though, there are issues. All social media - indeed all marketing - is reductive of actual experience. The brand-builders decide what you see and know about a 'product' - they have to, they're trying to sell it. In terms of 'people-as-product', it projects a person's values according to metrics that typically apply to more conventional products: What are the key features of brand Obama? What is the target audience, what elements of the Obama message can we leverage to access this untapped market? and so on. This is fine if the person in question is well-versed for such puppetry (politicians generally have no difficulty) but generally the whole charade adds to a Jamesian 'depthlessness' of public information which has come to characterise much of the media's output.(NB swotty reference to cultural logic of late capitalism: Frederic Jameson for anyone who's interested). In broad terms this means that information has less to do with truth and more to do with what ideas are for sale on the black market of moral bankruptcy.. BLEAK.
In short, if it's a person that needs to be marketed, it should be done with authenticity, integrity and not an inconsiderable amount of style in order to cut through the bullshit. Team Katie Price, due to the product in question, are actually doing ok.

Places:
Not just places like London which enjoy a lengthy heritage in popular imagination but whole countries and then some really small places too. Costa Rica for example and down-town Harlem in NYC have rolled out cohesive marketing strategies and 'destination management' policies. Bizarre for the impression it gives of being a commercial 'product'. Harlem is jolly well going to have a say in how you perceive it's USPs thank you very much. Westonbirt Arboretum? (That'll be a relatively small collection of trees) - £10 for a privileged peek at these leafy boughs and a chance to buy a T shirt on the way out. Thanks very much for coming - please review us on tripadvisor. TREES I TELL YOU!
When it comes to branding, places were relatively unmarked territory (sorry) until recently. But increasingly, each untouched space has a host of brand guardians breathing commercial life into thin air...

But it's not all bad, check out Project Wild Thing. 'We've marketed everything under the sun, but now we want to market the sun itself'. Thrilling stuff. Now that is something my English teacher would have approved of.

The Tale of the Sun and the Wind: An Analogy

Once upon a time the Wind came to the Sun in a sulky and belligerent mood. 
'Why does everyone like you more?' asked the Wind, 'it doesn't seem fair. I am far better than you.' 
The Sun merely shone serenely and let the Wind continue (as was his habit):
'Let's have a contest,' said the Wind. 'I bet I can remove that man's coat from him quicker than you can.'
The Sun smiled in weary acceptance of the challenge.

The Wind huffed and puffed and pulled and pushed at the man's coat, but the garment didn't budge. The Wind blew a gale in the man's face yet the man simply pulled the coat tighter around him. 
When the wind had blown himself out, it was the Sun's turn to have a go.

The Sun gently beamed down rays of warmth on the man and it wasn't too long before he got too hot and took off his coat.

And so it is, my friends, with Social Media.