Brand Autopsy

Stoopid Fun

Brand Autopsy loves it some satire … especially business satire. So for any work-related Holiday party doing a freakin’ white elephant gift exchange this year, I’m bringing STOOPLES: Office Tools for Hopeless Fools. Sure, the book is disposable humor but its worth glancing through because you are guaranteed a hearty laugh and certainly a chuckle from it. Check out these gems from the STOOPLES bogus catalog…

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According to THE SMALL TIMES

>>> I wonder if the folks behind THE SMALL TIMES read Seth Godin's blog?

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NOTE: Photo taken at a Seattle Coffee Company shop in Cape Town, South Africa.

Mercadeo de Boca en Boca

Over at the WOM vs. ADV blog, I posted five images illustrating the difference between Word-of-Mouth Marketing and Advertising under the header of The Difference is Why. Nice to see a Spanish-speaking marketer translate the series of posts …

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Thanks Edgardo for the better English to Spanish translation of Word-of-Mouth Marketing.

FIRST IN THIRST | BBBT #10

Welcome to the second stop on the Business Blog Book Tour #10. We’re discussing Darren Rovell’s FIRST IN THIRST: How Gatorade Turned the Science of Sweat into a Cultural Phenomenon.

Betcha hadn’t thought much about the business success story of Gatorade … I hadn’t. However, Darren Rovell has and he has unearthed a great business story in Gatorade.

In FIRST IN THIST, Darren traces the roots of Gatorade from a University of Florida laboratory to being recognized as one of the 100 best brands of the 20th century. To get a taste for the Gatorade story, I highly recommend you read the book’s introduction [pdf].

For this tour stop, we’ve prepared an audio blog and two posts. Enjoy…

Inside the Bottle | an audioblog interview with Darren Rovell

Bathing in the Gatorade Bath | learn why Gatorade had the discipline not to over-market the iconic Gatorade Dunk

You Gotta Seed to Believe | learn how Gatorade seeded the market with influentials

Inside the Bottle

DOWNLOAD AUDIOBLOG HERE
[10:48 minutes | 7.6 MB]

Book: FIRST IN THIRST: How Gatorade Turned the Science of Sweat into a Cultural Phenomenon

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Audioblog Abstract:

Gatorade’s dominance is a direct result of its purpose-driven ways to enhance an athlete’s performance.

Gatorade can be considered sports first scientific supplement to improve an athlete’s performance as evidence by the gushing comments from pro athletes and sports trainers.

The aspirational appeal of Gatorade can be traced to weekend warrior athletes wanting to emulate the sports heroes they see drinking Gatorade on the sidelines at sporting events.

Part of Gatorade’s business success has come from the lessons learned from failed projects like Gatorade Light which subsequently resulted in the development of Propel fitness water.

Bathing in the Gatorade Brand Bath

Over nearly two decades, the dumping of the Gatorade cooler on the coach has become a tradition at every level of sports. During any given fall weekend, a Gatorade dunking happens on a football field in every state and the reporting of the event gives the brand countless free media mentions and impressions every year.[source: FIRST IN THIRST (pgs. 77-78)]

While the Gatorade Dunk has become one of the most well known marketing moments in sports, Gatorade marketers haven’t exploited the Gatorade Dunk with over-the-top multi-dimensional marketing campaigns. Instead, Gatorade marketers have allowed this marketing moment to happen serendipitously with little prodding from the company.

In an email exchange with Darren, he had this to say about how Gatorade marketers view the Gatorade dunk opportunity …

The Gatorade Dunk was first recognized during the 1985-86 season, when the New York Giants started doing it after every victory. They, of course, went on to win the Super Bowl, which was the ultimate marketing coup for Gatorade.

Early on, Gatorade officials realized that while this was great exposure, it had to be spontaneous. The minute something like this was planned, it would ruin the moment.

Gatorade officials had offers for planned dunks proposed by agents of players and a NASCAR official came up with the idea that they should do an upside down Gatorade logo on the cooler so that when a driver's team turned it upside down, the logo would appear right side up.

Credit Gatorade marketers for having the discipline not to "over-market" something seen as being genuine and spontaneous by consumers.

You Gotta Seed to Believe

“A breakthrough idea needs both innovators and opinion leaders to create mass, and varying numbers of each. Within early markets, the fringe facilitates innovation and the opinion leaders encourage mass adoption. Critical mass is achieved once the rate of adoption is self-sustaining. Making contact with these groups is the most delicate and critical stage of the hijack operation.” [SOURCE | BRAND HIJACK book (pg. 190)]

In FIRST IN THIRST, Rovell writes how Gatorade built its business by seeding the marketing with innovators and opinion leaders – a page right out of the Brand Hijack playbook (see quote above).

The innovators and opinion leaders Gatorade targeted were athletic trainers. While instrumental in helping players perform better on the field, Gatorade learned athletic trainers were mostly ignored by their teams. By simply giving team trainers attention and product samples, Gatorade turned trainers into brand evangelists for the product. In turn, these athletic trainers turned evangelists helped ensure Gatorade received prominent placement of its iconic orange coolers and logo’d cups on the sidelines of nationally televised games.

When asked about the importance seeding the market with influential sports trainers played in building the Gatorade brand, Rovell responded …

One of the most brilliant strategies that former Gatorade sports marketer Bill Schmidt dreamed up was paying attention to the athletic trainers. No one had ever really cared for them before.

Well, they (trainers) loved Schmidt. He started a fund for them, gave them holiday gifts, organized a trainers group so that they could share information. And, in return, Schmidt got what he wanted -- trainers communicating to athletes the importance of Gatorade as well as the trainers serving as a point of information for the folks at Gatorade should they hear about a competitor entering the marketplace.

Espresso Sessions

Okay ... I never intended for LIGHT BLOGGING AHEAD to mean NO BLOGGING. But I've been busy and the respite from blogging on Brand Autopsy has been nice.

As I mentioned on a previous post, I was invited by Rich...! (Missing Link [business], Jo'blog [blog], and Hello World [blog]) to be a part of Standard Bank's ESPRESSO SESSIONS.

In these sessions, Standard Bank invites some of their small business and entrepreneurial clients to an early morning power breakfast designed to jumpstart their day with coffee, connections, and kick-ass business ideas. Along with cricketer turned banker dude, Jonty Rhodes (bio | photos), we all shared espresso-sized shots of business ideas and ideals during the aptly named ESPRESSO SESSIONS with folks in Cape Town, Durban, Pretoria, and Johannesburg.

Rich...! told us how First Impressions Lie and his theory on Strategic Cursing. While Jonty served as jovial host and shared business applicable experiences from his cricket playing days. As for me ... I gave my Starbucks Tribal Knowledge spiel.

I'll blog more about my takeaways in the days/week to come. Until then, here is a photo of the Espresso Sessions Trio:

Jonty, johnmoore, and Rich...!

Light Blogging Ahead

Another Wal*Mart Feel-Good Story

In this Wall Street Journal article, we learn more about how Wal*Mart’s finely tuned supply chain operations is being used for the greater good.

Ya know … action speaks louder than advertising. And this action by Wal*Mart is a far better image-builder than the mega-millions of feel-good brand image advertising the company has been trying to jam into our consciousness. Mucho kudos to Wal*Mart for being a good corporate citizen during the relief efforts.

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from the Wall Street Journal (Monday | Sept 12, 2005):

The Federal Emergency Management Agency could learn some things from Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

On Wednesday, Aug. 24, when Katrina was reclassified to a storm from a tropical depression, Jason Jackson, the retailer's director of business continuity, started camping out in Wal-Mart's emergency command center. By Friday, when the hurricane touched down in Florida, he had been joined by 50 Wal-Mart managers and support personnel, ranging from trucking experts to loss-prevention specialists.

On Sunday, before the storm made landfall on the Gulf Coast, Mr. Jackson ordered Wal-Mart warehouses to deliver a variety of emergency supplies, from generators to dry ice to bottled water, to designated staging areas so that company stores would be able to reopen quickly if disaster struck.

Then, when the hurricane knocked out Wal-Mart's computerized system for automatically updating store inventory levels in the area, he fielded phone calls from stores about what they needed. He also alerted a replenishment team to reorder essential products, such as mops and bleach. And by Tuesday, scores of Wal-Mart trucks, some escorted by police, were setting out to deliver 40 generators and tons of dry ice to company stores across the Gulf that had lost power.

Katrina is the biggest natural disaster Wal-Mart has ever had to confront. Initially, 126 of its stores, including 12 in the New Orleans metropolitan area, and two distribution centers were shuttered because they were in Katrina's direct path. More than half ended up losing power, some were flooded and 89 have reported damage.

But by this past Friday, all but 15 of the idled stores had reopened. From Boutte, La., to Pass Christian, Miss., Wal-Mart frequently beat FEMA by days in getting trucks filled with emergency supplies to relief workers and citizens whose lives were upended by the storm.

Wal-Mart's speed in responding to Katrina underscores the extent to which it and other big-box retailers like Home Depot Inc. have become key players in responding to natural disasters. Whereas FEMA has to scramble for resources, Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart has it owns trucks, distribution centers and dozens of stores in most areas of the country. It also has a specific protocol for responding to disasters, and it can activate an emergency command center to coordinate an immediate response. [MORE]

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UPDATE: Investor's Business Daily has a nice article on how/why Wal*Mart is helping during the Katrina aftermath.

Feel-Good Wal*Mart Stories

Hard to find fault with Wal*Mart’s response to the Katrina aftermath …

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“Wal-Mart was able to get essential supplies to rural parishes in Louisiana before FEMA or the Red Cross arrived. The company's logistics and transportation system made it well suited to respond to an emergency like Katrina.” [National Public Radio audio]

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“The world's largest retailer has struggled on numerous public relations fronts in a prolonged battle with critics who say the company represents the worst of low-cost retailing. But Wal-Mart's response to the catastrophe - seen as far more effective than government efforts - has drawn praise from nearly all quarters.” [Associated Press article]

Rock star rockin’ the business speak

We all know Paul Stanley, guitarist and vocalist for KISS, wants to rock and roll all night and party every day. Little did we know he also wants to speak like a business idiot. Stanley was asked by Ad Age’s POINT magazine what the difference is between a band and a brand. He responded by saying ...

"A band is limited in its potential to diversify, by its lack of multidimensional appeal. If music is the sole connect a band makes with a fan, music is all the fan will buy. In the case of KISS, in addition to music and video, we can market the iconic images of the band through products that allow fans to show their affiliation and allegiance to the band’s music, image and philosophy. That said, for a band/brand to sustain, the band must remain viable and credible as a music entity to maintain the brand’s validity."

Huh?

And this comes from the same man who penned such thought-provoking rock ‘n roll lyrics as:

Don’t wanna wait ’til you know me better
Let’s just be glad for the time together
Life’s such a treat and it’s time you taste it
There ain’t a reason on earth to waste it
It ain’t a crime to be good to yourself
Chorus:
Lick it up, lick it up, it’s only right now
Lick it up, lick it up, ooh yeah
Lick it up, lick it up, come on, come on
Lick it up, lick it up

[lyrics from LICK IT UP (1983)]

Kevin Carroll Interview

We've gushed about Kevin Carroll before on Brand Autopsy. And for good reason. His message of passion and play is too intoxicating not to drink it in. And now thanks to Todd Sattersten's interview, I know more about this amazing man. Download now. Listen today. Be inspired immediately. (Don't forget to buy his book.)

You can also visit Kevin's website ... The Katalyst Consultancy.

Upcoming Presentations from Brand Autopsy

Rich…!, from the Hello World blog and of Missing Link fame, has invited me to spend a week in South Africa sharing my Starbucks Tribal Knowledge story. Along with South African cricket legend Jonty Rhodes, we’ll be talking with entrepreneurs in Cape Town, Durban, Pretoria, and Johannesburg as part of The Espresso Sessions. This is all going down the week of September 19th and should be lots of fun … especially considering this will be my first trip to South Africa.

Then in early October, I’ll be a part of eComXpo … an online “virtual” conference. Virtual Attendees will be able to stream any of 90 narrated PowerPoint presentations from a slew of experts such as Seth Godin and John Batelle. While this conference has a high-tech marketing angle, I’m going the high-touch marketing angle with my TRIBAL KNOWLEDGE and jumboSHRIMP MARKETING presentations.

You can sample a bite-size chunk of my eComXpo jumboSHRIMP MARKETING presentation (.wmv) by clicking here. (Pardon the low quality resolution. The .ppt to .wmv transfer was a homemade job.)

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Oh yeah ... I’m looking to ramp up the presentations side of my business. So if you know someone who is looking for a speaker to share marketing know-how learned from working deep inside Starbucks and Whole Foods … consider me.

a BIG small idea

Worthy Weekend Reading

Inc. Magazine | The Anatomy of a Sale – Ours
Bo Burlingham writes a very revealing insider look at the Inc. & Fast Company fire sale to Joe Mansueto.

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Wall Street Journal | Instrument Giant Plays Local Tune
The Guitar Center is a prototypical jumboSHRIMP company. In this article, you’ll learn how this $1.5B company gets bigger by acting smaller.

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Strategy+Business | The Advertising Saturation Point
A great piece about advertising’s “tipping point” of when going heavy becomes a heavy burden to growing sales.

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NY Times | Reaching for Success But Not Too Much of It
A tasty read profiling homegrown entrepreneurial businesses who believe small is the new big.

Thanks MTR-Design

If you notice on the left-hand column of this blog, I have links to my Brand Autopsy Marketing Practice business which includes a video sample of my Starbucks Tribal Knowledge presentation.

Nikolay Nedev, reader of this blog and owner of Bulgarian-based MTR-Design, recently streamed my sample presentation video. After viewing it, he sent me a note graciously offering to convert my video to flash. How could I turn that offer down? Couldn’t.

So … thanks to MTR-Design, my sample presentation video is now available in flash.

Here’s wishing MTR-Design much positive juju!!!!!!

MTR-Design.com

The Most Important Word in Marketing?

Scott … that guy with the nametag … has started an interesting conversation about what the most important word is in marketing. I say AUTHENTICITY. Seth says RESPECT.

What say you? Share your word on Scott’s blog.