Great presentation - The Brand Gap

May people will have seen the attached presentation called "The Brand Gap". For those that haven't, take a look. There are some great points here about what makes a great brand and how might you help achieve this for your organisation. I love this deck...

Why call yourselves marketingQED?

I've been asked on a couple of occasions why we chose the name marketingQED for our business venture. For those that don't know, QED stands for "quod erat demonstrandum" - Latin for "which was to be demonstrated" or "which has been shown".

We are using the name to suggest that we can "prove" or "demonstrate" the effectiveness of marketing - a fairly bold claim but an achievable one.

Will we stick with the name until the end of time? I don't know. There's much more to business success that a good name. Given that many people have questioned me about the name, I'd guess that there is less understanding of the term QED than I thought. Therefore we may need to change the name at another stage.

Anyway what has this got to do with marketing effectiveness? The answer is that it very little except that we're listening (a good tactic if you want to be successful they say). A brand isn't a funky name (or a poor one come to that) but it does add to first impressions. To be effective at marketing, you've got to be prepared to change horse mid-race if that's what your judgement is telling you. At this point, we're going well but only into the first bend......

Are Ford serious about the Taurus

In recent years, car manufacturers have looked to historic models for inspiration when designing and releasing new models. The Mini has been a great success for BMW, VW scored a minor hit with the Beetle (and the new Camper Van is on the way) and Fiat are about to release a new 500 model.

Whilst the Ford Taurus is not a "great" historic model, it does go back a long way (1992). However poor sales in recent years have led to the brand name becoming devalued in the US to the extent that one wonders why Ford are continuing with this brand.

From the new JWT commercial, it's clear that Ford are looking to promote this vehicle as a safe one - a bit like a Volvo. But wait! Ford own Volvo - so which is the safe one?

This strikes me as amazingly bad positioning of a brand. Taurus or Volvo for safety? Well Volvo has the track record so if it's safety i want then that's where I'll go. What about the retro value? Is Taurus a "great" brand which Ford need to maintain? erm no. I don't think it is.

Ah but wait - Volvo doesn't stand for safety anymore - the latest commercials focus on lifestyle:

Here's the question - what values does Ford assign to Taurus and Volvo. If they are sharing brand values then why keep two brands?

Online banners for branding - have these guys caught a fever?

Please read the following article by Jim Novo on the value of online banner ads and the frequent excuses used for this spending.

http://blog.jimnovo.com/2007/06/08/banners-brand/

A great article and one which is bound to get comments over the coming week - keep watching.

What went wrong in the 2012 research

...yet another blog post on the 2012 logo then?

Well yes - what I want to focus on is not necessarily the validity of the logo (which I think is actually quite cool in it's multimedia incarnation) but what lessons there are for researchers.

It's clear that public opinion in the UK and elsewhere isn't 100% behind the logo. Any well conducted research would have shown that this logo would divide opinion. That in itself is no big deal. However there is another theory and it's this. Although a great deal of research would have been done to justify the logo (£400k goes a fair way), it may not have actually been done properly - it's possible that they asked the wrong questions and in this may have included the use of leading questions - these are a real problem in this type of research.

In this case, a leading question would have been "do you think that this logo expresses dynamism and energy?" - clearly the question itself leads the respondent to assess the logo on the emotive terms dynamism and energy. If the selection criteria for the logo are these characteristics then - hey presto - we have a winner. A better question would have been "what emotions does this logo convey" - at least this wouldn't have led respondents to certain answers.

Let's turn to that great TV series "Yes, Prime Minister" for the definitive explanation:

Sir Humphrey: "You know what happens: nice young lady comes up to you. Obviously you want to create a good impression, you don't want to look a fool, do you? So she starts asking you some questions: Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the number of young people without jobs?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Are you worried about the rise in crime among teenagers?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Do you think there is a lack of discipline in our Comprehensive schools?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Do you think young people welcome some authority and leadership in their lives?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Do you think they respond to a challenge?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Would you be in favour of reintroducing National Service?"
Bernard Woolley: "Oh...well, I suppose I might be."
Sir Humphrey: "Yes or no?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Of course you would, Bernard. After all you told you can't say no to that. So they don't mention the first five questions and they publish the last one."
Bernard Woolley: "Is that really what they do?"
Sir Humphrey: "Well, not the reputable ones no, but there aren't many of those. So alternatively the young lady can get the opposite result."
Bernard Woolley: "How?"
Sir Humphrey: "Mr. Woolley, are you worried about the danger of war?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Are you worried about the growth of armaments?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Do you think there is a danger in giving young people guns and teaching them how to kill?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Do you think it is wrong to force people to take up arms against their will?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "Would you oppose the reintroduction of National Service?"
Bernard Woolley: "Yes"
Sir Humphrey: "There you are, you see Bernard. The perfect balanced sample."

As I said at the start, I like the logo. However many people don't and such an adverse reaction to a picture has to be unique in the history of logo design.

So that's my theory - it researched well for one of two reasons - either they asked leading questions because they wanted a certain answer or the questions were formed in such a way that one logo one over the others. Either way, I'd love to see the research which gave us this new logo.