[MUSIC] 0:00 Once upon a time we worked with a client who was a manufacturer and 0:06 I'm not gonna say what kind of manufacturer in case they guess 0:11 it doesn't have a happy ending this story. 0:15 They were a manufacturer and so they had their manufacturing division and 0:19 their sales and marketing. 0:23 And their installation in other parts of the company, their dealer network. 0:25 And we worked with just their marketing department. 0:32 We reported to their director of marketing. 0:36 And when they started working with us their main 0:39 pain was that they were spending too much on paper clip campaigns. 0:42 Great, we'll fix that. 0:46 We reduced their cost per click. 0:48 We drove three times as many leads with the same kind of spend. 0:51 And all of those magical things look great in a case study. 0:54 But then, as we worked with them more and 0:57 more we saw that thing weren't quite right. 0:59 There were views or terrible like 1:06 just really awful reviews and this was back when before Google made you 1:11 use your real name to leave reviews so they were like, that's our competition. 1:16 I go, okay. 1:21 And one of them was obviously their competition, they left bad reviews for 1:22 every company in town except for the company they worked at. 1:24 Okay, legit. 1:28 But then there was more and more bad reviews. 1:30 And they were persistent bad reviews. 1:33 Like that person was so mad, that they would write a bad review and 1:35 then leave it on every possible review site, including ones we didn't even know 1:38 of until we saw the brand name pop up in our search. 1:42 Okay, they're really mad. 1:46 And so we bring this to the marketing department and 1:47 say, hey, maybe you could fix this. 1:50 And they'd say, that's installation's problem. 1:54 It's like, well, it's kind of your problem because we can actually see 1:57 your conversion rate going down. 2:02 We can see more searches for your brand name reviews, 2:04 we can see more searches for your brand name sucks. 2:08 That's not what we wanna have. 2:12 And they say, no, that's installation's problem. 2:13 Like can you please take $1,000 out of your marketing budget, and make this 2:16 right for this other angry, angry, angry person who continues to leave reviews. 2:21 No we can't do that either. 2:26 So it got to the point where we felt gross marketing this company. 2:29 They had all the right things, right? 2:34 They had a good reputation, if you hadn't bought their stuff yet. 2:36 They had Better Business Bureau logo. 2:42 They didn't have any outstanding cases. 2:46 They won Canada's 50 best employers to work at award, which is not really 2:49 an award you win, it's an award you pay for but people don't know that. 2:53 They had all the awards and they looked reputable. 2:58 So as marketers we felt like we couldn't keep marketing this product, it was wrong. 3:03 And for them, they couldn't get their different departments together 3:10 to solve the fundamental issues. 3:14 Their marketing did not match their reality, and this happens a lot. 3:17 In organizations now, you have one person who does your digital marketing and 3:21 you have someone else at the radio station who writes your ads and puts them out. 3:27 And then you have your customer service department, your call center, and 3:31 they have their own training manuals and training guides and what to say and 3:36 what not to say. 3:39 And then you have your social media team who's basically making it up as they go 3:40 along, right? 3:43 And I'm sure they're all nice people, 3:46 but they don't necessarily work in the same department. 3:47 They may not work at the same company. 3:51 This could be all outsourced different agencies. 3:53 And so they're not working together and we talk about silos and 3:57 breaking down the silos but really at the end of the day it isn't just 4:01 the silos within marketing, it's the silos within your entire organization. 4:05 And what happens as a result of this is that your brand is broken. 4:10 Your brand is not delivering the kind of experience that it should, 4:15 and so we're gonna fix that. 4:20 Your brand is your promise, your brand says, 4:24 if you go with us, this is what's gonna happen. 4:28 And different brands have different kinds of promises. 4:33 If you do marketing for Comcast, you have a difficult job. 4:36 I think Comcast is basically the only American company I consistently hear 4:43 bad things about, like not even one good story ever. 4:47 So if you're here from Comcast, I'm sorry. 4:50 That's got to be a hard job, please write a memoire. 4:54 I will read it. 4:57 >> [LAUGH] >> But you're brand is your promise. 4:58 Right, now Comcast promise is, well, you're stuck with us, right? 5:03 And that's what they're trying for. 5:07 But if you think about your own brand, 5:09 and what you're promising people, does that promise actually match the reality? 5:11 And it's more than marketing. 5:16 It's more than your promoted tweets, it's more than your radio ad, 5:18 it's more than your billboard, it's how you're greeted when you walk into a store. 5:22 It's when you call somebody what does it sound like? 5:27 Whenever clients we called them and I said put me on hold I wanna hear what it 5:30 sounds like and it was fuzzy radio like okay, so let's fix that. 5:35 It's stuff like that, and 5:39 it's all these different things that come together to make a brand. 5:42 And so, you're probably looking at this right now and 5:46 saying, Dana I don't have control over these things, that's ridiculous. 5:49 But when you're done with the brand strategy 5:55 which we're gonna walk through today. 5:59 You should, or you will. 6:01 So for example, looking at this list, I'm sure you're adding up in your mind 6:04 what you actually have control over at your job. 6:08 Maybe it's one small part of this, maybe it's several pieces. 6:11 You think vehicles, I don't have control over vehicles. 6:16 Maybe I can put a wrap n it, so our logo's on it, and therefore it's branded. 6:18 But it's not really branded, because if I get cut off by your truck on the road, 6:24 I have now had a bad brand experience. 6:29 I am mad at you, and I can't call, because we have hands-free cell phone laws. 6:32 So I'm just gonna sit there and see that your stupid company and your stupid truck. 6:38 And I'm gonna feel a little less happy, if I wanna buy your products and 6:42 services later. 6:46 I'm gonna feel a little bit less excited about buying your products. 6:47 And that is the essence of creating that good 6:54 brand experience, getting away from the bad things that take away from the brand, 6:59 and instead building a solid foundation. 7:04 For example, this is a airline in Canada, WestJet. 7:09 They do fly to US destinations. 7:13 If you like to visit Canada, they're very nice. 7:14 They're very, very friendly, and if you've been in Western Canada you will know about 7:19 the friendliness that you experience there. 7:23 It's like aggressive friendly. 7:25 Coming from Ontario originally, it took me a little bit to get adjusted to it. 7:28 I was used to grumpy Toronto and people were so nice. 7:31 [LAUGH] But for West Jet, they have, 7:33 they're very family friendly, this is their magic plane. 7:38 It doesn't just fly to Orlando, it flies around, and 7:40 if you tweet, hey I spotted the magic plane and use the hashtag, 7:44 apparently they toss you some credits for flight on WestJet which is pretty cool. 7:47 But they do this thing every Christmas, 7:52 and I don't know how many of you here have seen this. 7:54 They call it the WestJet Christmas miracle. 7:58 And it will make you cry, so don't watch it now. 8:00 Maybe like on your break in the corner so you can weep. 8:03 One that really stuck with me is there was a flight from Toronto to Calgary which is 8:07 about a four or four and a half hour flight. 8:11 And when you were at the gate there was a little video box and 8:14 there's Santa saying hey, what do you want for Christmas? 8:19 And you said to Santa what you wanted, 8:23 some people said socks, some other people said a TV. 8:25 They guy who said socks probably regretted it. 8:29 >> [LAUGH] >> And then, the plane takes off, 8:31 they're like oh, WestJet, they're so cute. 8:34 They asked me what I wanted for Christmas. 8:36 They get to Calgary, they get off the plane, 8:38 and instead of luggage, out comes there presents. 8:41 In the four hours the plane's in the air WestJet employees went and 8:45 bought everything on that list, and there's crying, there's more crying, 8:49 and instead of spending money on a tv campaign, they did this. 8:55 And it was a beautiful execution of a digital first campaign. 9:02 It's on YouTube, sponsor social, didn't worry about off-line, 9:07 it happened, because it was that amazing. 9:12 It went around the world, you may have seen it, it was all over Buzzfeed for 9:15 a couple of days. 9:19 But then, Michaela, our account manager at KickPoint took a flight with WestJet. 9:21 And one of the things that they do, part of their brand, 9:28 is that they tell funny jokes. 9:30 And by funny I mean bad jokes, like puns and stuff. 9:32 After you land and while you're taxiing, 9:36 because that's really the most boring part of the flight and everybody gets antsy. 9:37 So they tell bad jokes. 9:40 And usually they're like cheesy like what's brown and sticky, a stick [LAUGH]. 9:43 But you're a little bit delirious because you've just been on a plane for 9:48 four hours so it's hilarious. 9:51 And this one time when Michaela took the flight, 9:53 the flight attendant told a really. 9:56 Inappropriate sexist joke, and half the plane laughed and half the plane went ugh, 9:58 and those people felt a little bit less great about WestJet. 10:05 Humans like consistency. 10:12 We like things to be the same. 10:15 We like to have expectations. 10:17 Consistency is wide brand restaurants exist. 10:19 I have stayed at the Hyatt, all of eight, three times for this conference. 10:23 We stayed in three different rooms, I'm sure. 10:28 They look the same, like it could be the same room for all I know. 10:30 And it's cool because when I get there I know what I'm gonna picture. 10:34 We like consistency. 10:37 I had to return something from Lenovo, I bought the wrong kind of plug. 10:40 And Anthony, my friend Anthony, I was waiting and waiting and 10:45 waiting and then he popped on chat. 10:49 He says, hey Dana, three exclamation marks, happy hump day, 10:50 three exclamation marks. 10:53 And then, thank you for contacting Lenovo's Post Sales Customer Service chat, 10:55 located at our Global Headquarters in North Carolina. 10:58 My name is Anthony, 11:00 how may I provide you with extremely satisfying customer service today? 11:01 I'm pretty sure the first two lines were actually Anthony and 11:04 the third line was not. 11:07 [LAUGH] Or so, am I talking to a human or am I talking to a robot or 11:08 maybe it's like Skynet, right? 11:13 All right, or is it the Lenovo cyborg who's now doing, it felt weird. 11:15 And it was like this throughout the entire chat, I was sending screen shots and 11:20 sending it around the office. 11:23 Because it was just crazy that he felt that he could say happy hump day, 11:24 which is funny, but come on. 11:30 And then they got this like Lenovo script. 11:33 Again, brand inconsistency. 11:36 And good marketing feels right. 11:39 Good marketing makes someone say, 11:43 oh I don't believe in advertising, while they choose Coke versus Pepsi. 11:47 Good marketing makes people make decisions that they are unconscious of and 11:52 every time you interrupt, every time there's a bad brand experience, 11:56 you're making people think. 12:00 We do not want people to think, and this is why we need brand strategy. 12:01 And this is why digital marketers are uniquely equipped to lead brand strategy. 12:07 When I talk to people about brand strategy, in fact, 12:13 I was talking to someone this morning while we were walking here and 12:16 I was talking about what I'm gonna talk about today. 12:19 And he said, yeah, I see that all the time in our locations. 12:22 And how people are greeted and all this other stuff. 12:25 I see the connections. 12:27 And if you're used to working in one little silo, like say radio, or 12:29 billboard or some offline traditional channels, you don't necessarily think of 12:33 all the different connections that go into that final product, but 12:38 digital marketers do. 12:43 All of us in this room are able to understand brand in a totally new way, 12:45 so I think that we are very well-equipped to go for the future of marketing. 12:52 Rand just talked about this, 12:57 lots of different speakers today are gonna talk about this. 12:59 This is where marketing is going. 13:01 The brand that manages to get their stuff together and provide a consistent 13:04 brand experience is going to win over their competition, hands down. 13:08 So let's get started. 13:13 I would like you to picture a brand continuum. 13:16 At one end, we have Dove. 13:21 Now when I say Dove, I'm sure you think of something. 13:24 Women wearing white, people looking in a mirror and crying, 13:27 some sort of like sketch, maybe that parody that they did. 13:32 And when you think of Protein World, 13:36 I imagine you probably think of something a little bit different. 13:38 Now Protein World, I don't know how many people know about these ads. 13:43 They ran an ad campaign in the UK, a little bit in New York. 13:47 And it was a picture of a woman wearing a tiny bikini and it said, 13:50 are you beach body ready? 13:54 Like I am not beach body ready according to Protein World and I'm okay with that. 13:56 I also don't use Dove, I'm somewhere in the middle. 13:59 So Dove and 14:02 Protein World have two very different brand statements. 14:06 This is Protein Worlds, when you read this, 14:12 there's some words that really stick out, revolution is one of them. 14:15 It's a very aggressive word, right? 14:20 Healthier, leaner, fitter, stronger. 14:23 Sounds like a Daft Punk song. 14:26 But this is their brand statement. 14:28 And then this is Dove's. 14:31 And this is just a portion of Dove's, Dove's is exceptionally long and 14:32 I decided not to give Erika hives and just take a portion of it. 14:36 But, confidence, not anxiety, positive relationship, 14:39 self-esteem, full potential, and if you put these together, 14:44 you can see that at their heart, they're really saying the same thing. 14:49 It's all about self-improvement. 14:55 It's about making yourself better, one way or the other. 14:57 Protein World's is you've got to look good in that bikini. 15:00 And Dove is, you're awesome just the way you are. 15:04 But they're still self-improvement at their heart. 15:07 Their brand strategy is how they execute 15:09 on that message of self improvement in very, very different ways. 15:12 So when you go back and you start thinking about your brand strategy, 15:18 I encourage you to start with your core values. 15:21 Maybe you have mission statement, maybe you have none of these things. 15:23 Maybe your mission statement says things like, world class or synergies. 15:28 Or it doesn't really say anything at all. 15:32 But it's a place to start. 15:34 Kick Point's core value is we help you do better. 15:37 That could be applied to almost anything, we apply it to marketing. 15:40 So write down those core values. 15:44 I'm sure they exist somewhere, maybe in a dusty document or somewhere. 15:47 Let's start with that. 15:51 And imagine your company as a person. 15:53 Now, marketing agencies, 15:57 I wanna say to you, you have to take the good and the bad. 15:59 So your persona is not Don Draper 16:04 because you can't have the whiskey without the sexism. 16:07 It's very specific. 16:12 And I see a lot of agencies are like, oh yeah, if our brand's a person, 16:14 it's totally Don Draper. 16:17 Peggy, I can get that, Don Draper, eh. 16:19 But think about how you would express your brand as a human being, and 16:23 humans are flawed, no human is perfect. 16:27 There are things that make your brand good and there are things that make your brand 16:30 bad, and you have to be really honest about both of these things. 16:33 Don't just gloss over the bad attributes, this is like therapy for your brand. 16:38 We're gonna talk about it, we're gonna cry, maybe some hugging, and 16:42 then we're gonna move on. 16:44 And really, 16:47 I think one of the most perfect expressions of brand as a person is Roger. 16:48 If I went around this audience today and I asked a hundred of you, 16:53 tell me Moz's core values, you would know. 16:58 There's a reason why you're here and you're excited for this, and 17:02 it's their core values, the tag fee code. 17:07 The givingness that they have for the community, right? 17:10 So if I went to your company, and I asked 100 people what your company stood for, 17:14 would I get 1 answer or would get 100 different answers? 17:19 That's a good sign that you need to start to build your brand strategy. 17:23 So we're gonna go through step by step how to make this happen. 17:28 So step one is why did this fail before. 17:32 If you're at a sufficiently large company, somebody has tried to do this, and 17:35 they failed and you want to know why, so you can avoid the same fate. 17:40 Think of it like Indiana Jones and when he's looking for the Holy Grail. 17:45 And he goes into that room, I'm sure most of you have seen this movie. 17:51 And he goes into the room with all the different cups and he has to pick 17:54 the Holy Grail and the old knight is there and says choose wisely, right? 17:57 And so he goes through the process and he picks, but 18:01 instead of picking a Holy Grail, wouldn't that be easy? 18:04 Here's our brand strategy! 18:06 Instead you're gonna be forensic analyst and figure out why everyone else died 18:08 and write it down, and be really honest as to why it died. 18:15 Dust off those biz school books, and do a SWOT analysis, and 18:19 figure out what is gonna cause havoc for this brand strategy. 18:23 And at this point, I strongly recommend getting the C-level on board. 18:29 So a couple different tactics for that depending up on how big your company is. 18:33 If you're very small company then 18:37 it may be very difficult because maybe the founder is maybe a little too involved? 18:41 And you need to get them to step back and so 18:46 I have a cautionary tale that you can feel free to share. 18:49 Someone we know back home is a personal trainer. 18:53 And he's building a company, but 18:57 he has problems because he is the brand on social media. 18:59 And they get a lot of their business from social media. 19:04 And so everybody says, oh, I only want to work with that guy, the founder, 19:06 I don't wanna work with anybody else. 19:11 And so they hire other personal trainers, but it's almost impossible for 19:13 people to come in via social and say, well I know you on social but 19:17 I guess I'll work out with this guy. 19:20 They're not excited about it, they don't stay. 19:23 And so he has to let go of his social media and 19:26 hand it off, but it's almost been too long now. 19:31 It's almost been to the point where it's gonna be really difficult to step back 19:35 as that brand. 19:40 As a small business, until you have a brand strategy, 19:41 until you have a brand voice, you, 19:45 whoever is the most prominent person at the company, will be that brand. 19:48 No matter what you do. 19:53 So building that brand. 19:55 Needs to be something that supersedes that person. 19:57 I think Moz went through the same thing here actually when they, one of the goals, 20:03 I remember Jen Lopez shared a slide and 20:07 one of their goals in social media was to be brand on Twitter with followers, yeah. 20:08 [LAUGH] And that was a really important goal for them, 20:12 because brand has such a strong voice and Moz had to be its own brand, past that. 20:16 So that's one way for the C-level if you're a small company. 20:25 If you're a bigger company tell them about how much money you're gonna save 20:28 by having less angry customers [LAUGH]. 20:33 That you can take the same budget, don't say less cuz then they'll cut your budget. 20:36 You can take the same marketing budget and do more with it. 20:39 Because you're gonna be building more brand advocates. 20:42 You're gonna be building more happier customers. 20:45 And you're also gonna be eliminating something that 20:48 we like to call Marketing Debt. 20:51 If you don't stand for anything at all. 20:53 If you're like, if I say to you, who's your target market. 20:55 You could say everybody. 20:58 It means really your target market is babies. 21:00 No, it's not. 21:02 Then you say to them, we need to make sure that we stand for 21:05 something, because what's happening is reigning in people who are tire kickers. 21:10 We're getting people who are inappropriate customers. 21:14 We're getting people who expect things that we are not comfortable delivering. 21:16 And we wanna eliminate that marketing debt. 21:21 That is time your sales team, or you, or whoever handles new leads is wasting 21:24 as a result of inaccurately targeted marketing. 21:30 And building a brand strategy is going to make that happen. 21:34 It's a pretty powerful argument for the C-level. 21:38 Do more with less. 21:40 Save time across the board. 21:42 They like that sort of thing. 21:44 So hopefully, now you've got them on board. 21:46 Now, you need to think about the brand is, and what the brand is not. 21:49 And I'm gonna show you an example to illustrate this. 21:54 Erika from Moz has a great post 21:58 on the Salesforce blog about building brand voice and tone. 22:02 And I'm sure someone will tweet that out for you, so you have that. 22:06 But this is for a wedding invitation company. 22:11 So they have the brand is romantic and airy. 22:15 In the near future the brand may be elegant and elite. 22:18 The brand is not cheap or tacky. 22:21 So, to get to this brand, 22:24 and the brand is not statements, I recommend a card sorting exercise. 22:26 And if you haven't done this before, you get a whole bunch of cards with 22:31 things written on them and then you lock someone in a room until they can 22:35 sort down the cards down to what you need them sorted down to. 22:38 And maybe don't feed them until they do it either. 22:41 And don't let them get away with any of this oh, 22:44 I can't decide between these two things. 22:45 No, no, you need two is, two in the future, and two is not. 22:47 That's it, two. 22:53 Not six, not three, not oh, I can't decide. 22:55 Two. 22:57 And I also recommend a couple of things when you're setting up this exercise. 22:59 Write about 40 or so words down, but tailor them to your company. 23:04 If you make industrial I don't know, power driving machines, for 23:09 example, you are not gonna write romantic and airy as two of your brand attributes. 23:15 I think. 23:20 If you do you have a very specific segment, well done. 23:22 But make them specific to your organization. 23:26 But try not to influence the process, especially if you're an agency. 23:29 Because you do not work there. 23:35 They work there. 23:37 They know the brand better than you. 23:39 Your goal is to learn, draw it from them, and express it back to them. 23:40 That's what they're paying you for. 23:45 It's not necessarily for you to say, 23:46 well, I like this, so they make sure that their target market don't do that. 23:47 So write down these 40 or so words on cards, 23:52 start with the brand is not, it's a lot easier for people to say, oh, 23:55 I don't like that or I don't this, then I do like this. 24:00 Think about when the client see the designed pieces. 24:03 Right? 24:05 They don't start with oh, I really like this. 24:06 They're like, I don't like this color of blue. 24:07 That's the feedback. 24:10 It's not necessarily good feedback, it's frustrating feedback, but it's feedback. 24:11 So start with the brand is not. 24:16 Then work what the brand is, and then in the near future. 24:18 I also recommend don't do it focus group style. 24:22 Where you have a bunch of people in a room, because there's always gonna 24:25 be one loud person who's gonna end up overruling everybody else. 24:27 Try to do it one on one as much as possible. 24:30 So that you are getting the real unfiltered feedback. 24:34 And as a result of this, you're gonna get some really interesting answers. 24:39 And you're actually gonna be able to see where 24:43 the problem areas might be once you push out the brand strategy. 24:46 If 20 people say this and then five people in this other department say something 24:50 completely different, you're gonna have a bad time. 24:54 You know this now, so you can prepare for it, add it to you SWOT analysis. 24:57 And the next step is Defining Voice and Tone. 25:02 And lots of people have talked about this in depth. 25:07 Lots of companies have their brand voice and tone out there. 25:10 Nelchem has a good one that's publicly available. 25:14 Buffer, who makes everything public, has it available out there. 25:17 I recommend reading those over. 25:22 But I also encourage you strongly brand strategy is more than just voice and 25:23 a lot of companies get to voice and then they stop. 25:29 They say okay we're good, because voice is something tangible. 25:32 It's easy to grab onto and say well this is not what the brand would say or 25:36 this is what the brand would say. 25:39 What happens is that you have your marketing department speaking one way 25:41 because they're all really excited about this brand voice. 25:44 And then you have the people answering the phones still going back to the old way of 25:47 doing things. 25:50 And it's an incomplete implementation and 25:51 then they are like this brand strategy stuff doesn't work. 25:54 Nevermind, we're never doing that again. 25:58 And then you go and 26:00 join the dusty skeletons in the room with all the holy grails. 26:01 Make sure that your brand strategy transcends just your brand voice. 26:05 All that being said, this is an example that we did for a client of ours, they're 26:10 called Industry Mailout, they're based in Edmonton and they do e-mail marketing. 26:15 Which as you can imagine is a very crowded field, so 26:19 they have some things that make them standout. 26:24 And what we're working with them on, is to help express those values. 26:27 And so in our brand voice document we have right like this, not like this, and why. 26:31 This is real examples, a real screen shot from our document. 26:38 Please don't only include the bad examples in the document. 26:43 It can be really demoralizing, [LAUGH] everything you do is bad, and 26:47 I am here to fix it. 26:50 You are not the brand police. 26:51 You are a brand coach. 26:53 So encourage them to write different ways. 26:55 Show them why. 26:59 Explain it in depth. 27:00 Provide really good reasons for why you're asking them to change things. 27:02 Or, if they did something good, reinforce the good things. 27:05 I included one of the examples where what they wrote was not like this, 27:09 but in our document we do have examples where right like this and then we had to 27:13 come up with something bad as an example of how not to write to balance it out. 27:16 And at this point it's a really good idea to get human resources on board. 27:22 They're gonna be a really good ally in this. 27:27 If you're a large enough organization that has a human resources person or 27:29 department because they make the hiring decisions that bring in the people who 27:32 are gonna be implementing this brand strategy. 27:36 And one of the interesting things that a well-defined brand strategy does for 27:40 your organization is it defines culture fit. 27:45 If you interview someone and you say, hey, 27:48 can you write a blog post about why accounting is awesome? 27:51 300 words, don't worry about spelling or grammar, 27:55 just we wanna see a sample of your writing. 27:58 And you read this and you think, wow, 28:01 this really aligns well with our brand, that's a good hire. 28:03 You don't even necessarily need to provide them with the brand both, ahead of time. 28:07 In fact, sometimes you shouldn't, 28:10 just to see the kinds of information they come back to you with. 28:11 And also, as you go through this process, you're gonna have some people who 28:16 are gonna say, this is dumb and I refuse to do it. 28:20 And you're gonna need each other as an ally, at that point, 28:22 to help you solve these things. 28:25 Because if you're in a big enough company, 28:27 there's gonna be some people who are not gonna want to make this happen. 28:28 I also encourage you to keep it really simple. 28:32 Your brand strategy is not a 50 page document, it's a business card. 28:37 It's something that I could explain to you in less than a minute. 28:43 It's something that you could tell me about. 28:48 That elevator speech, that 15 second elevator 28:52 speech they tell you to do when you start your own business. 28:54 That's how your brand strategy should be expressed. 28:58 So, are there any German speakers here? 29:01 Okay, my German accent is apparently awful. 29:04 I went through Google and I tried to get it, I couldn't figure out how to say this. 29:08 So, but, you would know what this is saying. 29:12 So pretend that I just said this in German. 29:17 I'm not going to. 29:19 It's seriously half an hour at my house and then my wife said, no, stop. 29:20 It's. >> [LAUGH] 29:24 >> You're so bad. 29:25 This is I'm lovin' it from McDonald's. 29:27 And I'm lovin' it, if you're not familiar with the campaign, I mean you're familiar 29:31 with the campaign, but you may not be familiar with how it started. 29:34 It started as a German campaign made by the German advertising agency. 29:37 And it was so good and so successful that they put it around the world. 29:42 It's been translated into tons of different languages. 29:46 And it has the same core messages regardless of where you are. 29:50 And they use I'm Lovin' It, 29:53 which is arguably their most successful advertising campaign ever. 29:55 It's been their longest running. 29:58 Even better than the Big Mac song. 30:00 They've been using it for years, and they use it for hiring people, 30:02 you're gonna love your job, I'm loving it. 30:07 They use it for people who are excited about their food, and 30:11 if you see the commercials, and you hear the little ditty that they do and 30:14 you immediately think McDonald's, you're not their target market, and that's okay. 30:18 Although sometimes they do sell, like I drove past one yesterday and 30:24 they're like salads. 30:27 I'm like no, that's not why people go to McDonald's, salads. 30:28 One thing that's been really interesting about the I'm Loving It campaign is that 30:31 McDonald's in North America are actually doing quite poorly. 30:35 McDonald's overseas are doing very, 30:38 very well because of the different ways that they express the brand. 30:40 And so I would encourage you at this point, 30:44 if you have international locations, take that brand voice and 30:47 take that brand strategy, translate it, get someone who actually speaks 30:51 the language to do this not like Google Translate and get international on board. 30:55 Read it to them and if it doesn't make sense in their language, 31:01 if your using words that don't translate well, and this often 31:04 happens when you're thinking of things that translate from German to English, 31:07 usually you can figure English into some of their language. 31:10 But, if it doesn't make sense to them then you're gonna have a difficult time 31:13 selling this brand strategy around the world. 31:18 Your brand strategy should be so 31:22 simple where people see it and say, oh yeah I get that. 31:23 We help you do better. 31:27 Okay, I feel like that's a thing I can get behind, I'm loving it, 31:28 yes that's a thing I can get behind. 31:31 International locations will help you get there. 31:33 And so now that you've got all the stuff together. 31:37 You've got your brand voice, you're starting to build what this means for 31:40 your brand strategy. 31:43 How do you sell it to everybody else at the company? 31:45 I would encourage you to show the dream. 31:48 So this is the dream if you are a cellphone company. 31:51 We start with Jess, LochJessMonster on Twitter. 31:55 I don't know if that Twitter handle is available, 32:00 but feel free to grab it, if it isn't. 32:02 Asking her friend, Elle, 32:03 do you like Breeze Mobile?I'm thinking about switching to them. 32:05 And hopefully, 32:08 your social media department is monitoring non @ mentions of your brand. 32:09 There is a great study done that said that most brands completely missed those 32:15 mentions, please don't. 32:18 Hopefully your brand communicated back to them and your social media team knew 32:21 exactly what to say because brand voice, like this not like this. 32:24 They didn't spend time thinking about whether or not they should reply, 32:29 they didn't spend time thinking about what to say, they knew what to say, 32:32 and they were able to say it. 32:36 And then she did some Googling, she checked out the website. 32:39 Breeze.co is not a real website, please don't go there. 32:42 We couldn't get it, unfortunately. 32:47 Your meta descriptions, 32:49 your title tags, are another great place to put in that brand. 32:52 You're PPC ads, I can't even tell you how many PPC ads I see 32:58 that say the same boring dreck as everybody else and 33:03 this is a massive opportunity to stand out with your brand. 33:06 When I was at Search Lab in Boston, I talked about, very deeply about PPC 33:12 ads and one of the examples I gave was car insurance companies. 33:16 And I said, here's three ads, TV ads, from car insurance companies. 33:21 It's like, okay, everybody knows the Geico gecko. 33:26 Everybody knows Flo from Progressive. 33:29 At the East Coast they have an ap called map for you or something like that. 33:31 And everybody knew what their ads look like. 33:34 Great. 33:36 Here's three PPC ads. 33:37 Match them up with the brand. 33:38 Nope. 33:40 I think maybe one or two people got but it was kinda like they were guessing. 33:42 Because they all said the same thing. 33:47 Save money on car insurance. 33:48 My goodness. 33:50 What a unique concept. 33:50 I've never heard of that industry before. 33:51 I think everybody says you can save money on car insurance. 33:53 What are you gonna do to stand out? 33:55 So think about that in your marketing and how you express yourself. 33:57 Why does your brand get tossed aside when it comes to things like pay verticals? 34:01 It's okay if your click-through rate is a little bit lower. 34:06 This is a radical idea. 34:09 It's okay if your click-through rate's a little bit lower because the customers 34:10 that you get are gonna be the ones that you want. 34:13 I careless about the click through rate on an ad 34:16 than I do about the conversion rate on the landing page. 34:19 I careless about the conversion rate on the landing page 34:22 than I do on the conversion rate from the lead to the sale. 34:25 That's really the most important metric. 34:27 Don't waste your salespeople's time, get them just the leads that they want. 34:30 So Jess is now driving to the store. 34:36 Hopefully, the social media people said, hey, where's your nearest store? 34:39 Great. 34:42 Greg is gonna be there between 4:00 to 9:00 today, 34:43 make sure to say hi to him when you get there. 34:45 This billboard matches all the other advertising that you've seen. 34:48 There's no weird differences. 34:51 There's no special that you didn't see on the website. 34:54 Maybe it's got a nice, trackable phone number. 34:57 Maybe it's got a trackable URL. 34:59 The billboard matches, everything else is happening. 35:02 And now she's at the kiosk with her giant sack of money. 35:05 [LAUGH] And is ready to switch. 35:08 And at this point, how was she greeted? 35:12 Do the in store displays match everything else that has led her up to this point? 35:15 Is Greg behind the counter saying oh yeah, hey yeah I heard from our social media 35:22 team you're gonna be coming in and you've got an iPhone 6. 35:27 And here's what we can do to switch you over to our service and 35:30 here's how long it's gonna take for your phone number and all that stuff. 35:33 That's not an impossible dream. 35:38 We have the technology, we can build it. 35:39 It's not, it's just something that doesn't necessarily happen. 35:43 And if that happens people are gonna think that's amazing. 35:47 It's not impossible, it's just hard. 35:49 And I think that with a brand strategy you can achieve these connections. 35:52 And then after she's so happy she switched over her phone. 35:57 She actually ended up getting a six plus because she felt the six wasn't enough 36:02 like a tablet to hold up to your face. 36:05 I have a Moto X, so I make fun of iPhones all the time. 36:08 Then she got her email afterwords, and the email also matched 36:11 all of the brand touch points that have happened up to this point. 36:17 It wasn't one of those, dear customer, 36:21 we understand you've had a recent experience with us at Breeze Mobile. 36:24 Please fill out this survey for a chance to win a gift card. 36:27 Do people actually win those gift cards? 36:29 Is it like Publisher's Clearing House? 36:33 I always wondered and I filled them out. 36:35 I've been with my same cellphone provider for, I think, 18 years now and 36:37 I have always filled them out and I've never won a gift card. 36:41 I'm just, come on guys. 36:43 When I get to 20 years, maybe balloons will fall from the ceiling or something. 36:45 I'm hopeful. 36:48 But these emails also need to match that post purchase experience is, 36:50 I would argue, even more important than the pre-purchase experience. 36:56 Customer loyalty is not just lip service. 37:00 And it's also a two-way street. 37:03 A lot of companies expect customers to be loyal to them, but 37:05 they are not loyal to their customers. 37:08 Cellphone companies are particularly bad at this. 37:10 There's always deals for new consumers but not a deal if I've been with you for 37:12 18 years, and I'm renewing my cellphone. 37:16 Why should I stick with you? 37:19 You give me no reason to. 37:20 Customer loyalty has to go both ways. 37:22 So you bring all these pieces together, and you say this 37:25 is the kind of brand experience that's gonna make things less expensive for us. 37:29 It's going to increase customer retention. 37:33 It's going to increase positive word of mouth. 37:35 It's going to increase our net promoter score and 37:38 all those great metrics that people in the C-level like to see. 37:40 A properly executed brand strategy makes all those happen. 37:44 And at this point, you can say, okay, we're gonna get service on board. 37:47 Because you're able to show them how much better it is when people come in and 37:51 they're not pissed off all the time. 37:55 When people come in, they're like yeah you're social media person was so nice. 37:57 I'm really excited to give you a whole bunch of money and 38:00 help you meet your quota. 38:03 Right? 38:04 You have less angry phone calls. 38:05 You have people dealing with stuff in a more proactive way. 38:08 Going back to West Jet, 38:13 they've had a really difficult time lately in social media. 38:14 They're actually, I feel like they're providing a master class on 38:16 crisis management in social media because five of their planes, 38:21 two weeks ago, had bomb threats called in, and 38:25 every one of them had to be grounded, no idea who's doing it. 38:28 The Mounties are on the case. 38:33 That's a very Canadian thing to say, isn't it? 38:34 [LAUGH] I feel like a moose should come out now. 38:36 Right? >> [LAUGH] 38:38 >> But 38:40 they have been handling it on social media so well, and it's on their brand voice. 38:41 And they haven't just been, cuz their brand voice is helpful, 38:46 their brand voice hasn't just been like, hey look, guy who just lost your luggage, 38:49 we're busy over here dealing with a bomb threat, so we can't help you right now. 38:53 No, they've been helping everybody. 38:57 It's amazing, I do recommend you check out their Twitter, scroll back a little bit, 38:59 you'll see how proactive and on they are. 39:02 And when Mikayla told them about the sexist joke, they were really sorry. 39:06 And they do follow up, they do fix things and that's what makes the difference. 39:11 You screw up, you do have to apologize. 39:17 But getting service on board and saying like look you're gonna know when you're 39:19 doing things right and you're doing things wrong. 39:22 You will have that consistency, not just with consumers but 39:25 within your own organization. 39:27 And then, when you look back at this brand document again, now you can start to see 39:30 how all these things start to come together a little more clearly for you. 39:35 How you can figure out how your out of home affects your social network. 39:39 How your signage and your apps work together. 39:45 And what you can do to influence all of those things in your organization. 39:49 Go beyond a document. 39:53 Do not let your brand strategy languish as a 50 page PDF. 39:55 In your intranet. 39:59 It's a living, breathing document, 40:01 that is the true expression of your company out there in the world. 40:04 And always be coaching, don't think, okay, I've coached everybody, 40:10 why aren't you following the brand voice? 40:15 It's a constant, ongoing process. 40:16 And remember, brand coach, not brand police. 40:20 You don't wanna be the Soup Nazi when it comes to the brand. 40:24 No brand for you, right? 40:27 You wanna help people, cuz the only way you're gonna get 40:28 people excited about this, the only way you're gonna get cheerleaders, 40:31 is if you help them do better. 40:34 If you encourage them to be consistent with the brand voice. 40:37 If they start to feel it, this is cheesy, but 40:41 feel it in their heart, that's a good brand voice. 40:43 And if you do all these things and 40:47 you bring your brand voice completely together, you will feel 40:51 that every decision that you make, whether it's marketing, whether it's sales, 40:55 whether it's service, everything will drive forward together with purpose. 41:00 And at Kick Point our brand is called Lady KP, you can imagine why. 41:05 And we ask ourselves, would Lady KP say this, would Lady KP tweet this? 41:12 I am actually quite terrible at writing as Lady KP. 41:16 And my business partner, Jen, 41:21 we co-own Kick Point together, she is much better at it than I am. 41:22 So I'll send her things and 41:27 say, please, teach me how to do this cuz I can't get Lady KP's voice. 41:28 But I'm working on it. 41:33 And that coaching is really important. 41:34 And it's something that, it's okay if you don't get it the first time. 41:37 It's something that you're gonna work towards. 41:40 And if you do every brand interaction, 41:44 thinking about that brand voice, thinking about that brand strategy, 41:48 thinking about the ultimate purpose of this, every decision that you make 41:51 will drive your company forward with purpose, not confusion. 41:55 Thank you. 41:57 >> [APPLAUSE] >> Thank you, Dana. 42:01 So I was sitting there thinking about this, cuz we've all worked with companies, 42:07 and they seem kind of valueless, and you go in, and you try to, what is your value, 42:12 and you touch on this a little bit, and they say our value is to work hard and 42:17 make money and >> I hope that's most companies values. 42:21 >> Yeah. >> That's the surface of existing, 42:25 continuing to exist as a corporation, working hard hard and making money. 42:28 Otherwise, well, making money part maybe you're a charity. 42:31 They still have to make money. 42:34 >> Yeah. 42:34 >> So, I think you have to push past that. 42:35 And if they don't, and I mean as an agency it's really hard to say no to people, but 42:38 sometimes there are some lost causes and if you work at one, I'm sorry, 42:43 that just like, they're just not gonna get there. 42:47 Even Comcast, bless their terrible service little hearts, 42:51 they have service standards that they try to achieve. 42:54 As terrible as they are, they do have something that they stand for, 42:59 other than making money. 43:03 >> But making money, that's awesome though, that's fine. 43:05 >> [LAUGH] Yeah. 43:08 >> Okay, couple of questions and you can submit these on the hashtag MozCon 43:09 qa >> You talked about a process of putting 43:13 things on cards, where do you get the 40 words to put on those cards? 43:15 >> There's a lot of, I can tweet out a link later but there's a lot of good 43:19 prompts for writers actually when you're developing characters. 43:24 There's these great lists of words of different attributes that your character 43:27 can have in stories, in novels. 43:31 And so you can go through that list. 43:33 There's like 200 or so words. 43:35 That's a good start. 43:37 I'll tweet out some examples as well. 43:38 That's a good way to start. 43:40 And if you ask people around the company too before you start the card 43:41 sorting process that can kinda seed where you're gonna go with that. 43:44 >> Okay, final question. 43:48 Evan Davis asks, why was Arby's so low on your chart? 43:49 >> [LAUGHS]. 43:52 >> And the meats. 43:53 What's the digs on Arby's? 43:54 >> Okay I personally love Arby's. 43:57 Often when we drive by an Arby's I have to stop and my wife hates it. 43:59 She thinks it's disgusting, so I just get my own little, roast beef burger and 44:03 have it peace. 44:07 And there's like two Arby’s left in Edmonton so I have to be very specific, 44:08 oh we're just gonna go down this way, it's a shortcut, and drive past the Arby’s. 44:11 Our art director made the brand continuum and I saw where she put Arby’s and 44:17 I laughed, cuz she knows that I love Arby’s and I just left it. 44:21 So that's why. 44:24 But Arby's roast beef, protein, Protein World. 44:26 And I wouldn't say too. 44:29 I imagine I wouldn't put the Protein World necessarily as the low end of 44:30 the continuum and Dove as the high end. 44:34 They're just different. 44:35 [LAUGH] >> All right, let's give a hand for 44:37 Dana DiTomaso everyone. 44:39 >> [APPLAUSE] >> Thank you. 44:40 >> [INAUDIBLE] >> Thank you. 44:41