Brand Advertising versus Corporate Advertising

Response to an Article by Al Ries published in AdAge June 2011 -- followed by a response from Al Ries..

Dear Al,

Your recent article: 'Brand Advertising seems to be on its way out.'

Years ago I was teaching a course in Advertising and Public Relations Case Studies and many students could not identify or distinguish Brand Advertising from Corporate Advertising.

I developed a lecture to address this issue, the same issue you wrote about today. I used Apple Computer's Corporate ID Campaign and then looked at its IPod advertising to help them to learn how to distinguish each, and how to create advertising for each.

I like to use Apple as an example because its products are so well designed and its advertising has been so well crafted.

Edelman Public Relations has been creating some very good corporate advertising campaigns for its clients. What they are doing is "positioning" the brand and then leveraging it in a way to give a continuity to all of the client's products or services (its Individual Brands): through Corporate Advertising - even though they don't call it that, it is what they are doing.

In recent years a Brand's Life Cycles have become increasingly important to marketers. All of the brands you selected fall into that category. Brand extensions fall into the Brand's Life Cycle where a brand needs to be redefined for new products and consumer demographics as they have changed from when the original brand strategy was devised, thus creating relevance to the brand for new demographics.

Ford especially is a good case in point. I had a conversation with Harry Webber who penned both: At Ford, Quality is Job #1. And, Ford has a better idea. Better Idea came first. He talked about how Ford recognized that it was an aging brand as it was being battered in the market by the Japanese. Ford hired Dr, W. Edwards Deming, the fellow who was cited for the Japanese miracle, to refocus Ford's management and company. Harry was intrigued by this and used it when he devised the messages - which were decidedly Corporate Advertising that was to impact all of Ford's brands. Ford Management understood this and used it as their way to communicate the changes that were occurring at the company. It was used with every brand model they made. He also created a website: We Own GM.com that developed ideas for the brand when it went into its troubled period.

I did creative work for General Mills for over twenty years. My agency was trusted with developing their new brands, even naming them. I remember when I was at a meeting where this marketing fellow laid what appeared to be Dog Barf on waxed paper on the table saying this could be a new category of products for us. His wife bought a dehydrator and this was the result of dehydrating apricots.

I immediately launched into the negatives of such a product telling them that this might well be fruit, fructose, but sucrose, dextrose, are all sugars and this happens to be the worst of all because it sticks to your teeth -- the American Dental Association would be all over this if you market it as healthy fruit, it is in reality candy. The Director of Marketing, Floyd asked me how can we package it? I said it has to have the waxed paper backing, it would have to be rolled up, and demonstrated how. Floyd asked what would we call it? I said Rolled Up Fruit, he said Fruit Roll-ups. This when on to become a multi-billion dollar a year category: sticky candy.

I bring General Mills up because this is a company that has always had brands and a clear distinction between its corporate self, GM, and the brands it has created. I worked on its first brand extension of its Cheerios® Brand - Honey Nut Cheerios. It was so successful I did the work for several more, and then for Total and Wheaties brand extensions. Each was immediately successful and gave GM more shelf space, increased volume, sales and profits without fragmenting or stealing share from the original brands. My agency also did all of the line extension for Yoplait, and other GM Brands -- and Land O'Lakes Butter. LOL New spreads, where my main directive was not to disparage the original LOL Butter Brand. They said I could say it tastes like butter -- but when I came back with: Tastes Better then Butter!, they all cringed.

I thought that your article was good, but lost the distinctions between corporate advertising and brand advertising. A distinction that I believe every advertising agency should be able to speak to when talking to marketers about their brands.

Attached is a proposal that I did several years ago for General Mills. My goal was to become agency of record for new media, to gain control of all of the individual brands, new media initiatives, to direct the effort with a coordinated approach. It didn't work, but many features were used for its current website(s). I also wrote a promotion for an "Ask Betty" website where Betty Crocker equity was used to bring consumers to it and offer recipes and coupons to stretch food dollars and increase nutrition. It was more of a feeler, to see if marketing would buy into leveraging the Betty Crocker brand, who was a stalwart during the Great Depression for millions of women who turned to her to help feed their families. They didn't buy that either.

What they finally arrived at for their Internet presence, was effective and has developed a strong following - and it is "Branded" entertainment content that the company creates and now promotes.

So I believe the Brand Advertising is strong and well and has many facets, the least of which is Corporate Advertising, where it is being redefined by marketers beyond the old "Family of Brands" positioning of telling and selling. Increasingly Corporate Advertising is seeking to become a lifestyle statement where consumers commit to the brands as a statement about who they are -- Nike has been doing this the best with its corporate brand and individual brands' advertising, as has Apple.

Daryl

Dear Daryl:

Thanks for your long email and copies of your General Mills and

Betty Crocker proposals. They are interesting an very relevant

to what could be done with corporation advertising and marketing

programs.

In my Advertising Age columns, I’m restricted to about 1,000 words

and even though I would have liked to have said something about the

role of corporate advertising versus the role of brand advertising,

there just wasn’t enough space to do so.

But there is one thing I feel strongly about. Companies need

powerful brand advertising campaigns before they even think

about doing corporate campaigns. Consumers buy brands;

they don’t buy corporations. Only investors buy corporations.

Consumers buy BlackBerries. They don’t buy Research In Motion

devices.

Thanks primarily to PR and somewhat to corporate programs,

consumers today know a lot about and have favorable opinions

about companies than they do about brands.

Many consumers have favorable opinions about Procter & Gamble,

the world’s largest consumer-goods company.

But what’s an Olay?

All the best.

Al

Al Ries

Ries & Ries

The Advertising Creative Director’s Handbook Synopsis:

The Creative Director’s Handbook Synopsis:

I am currently writing an Advertising Creative Director's Handbook. It is a Primer for Creative Directors, Copywriters and Art Directors. I began my career as an Art Director and partner at AdWorks, San Francisco, California; and then became an agency President and Creative Director and agency owner of Viking Creative Concepts, Inc., in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

AAA Comment Response on Linkedin (Creative Director's Handbook Overview):

Dear Robert,

You wrote:

“Your Creative Handbook sounds great, unfortunately our “creative” (all but a few) would benefit for servers and carpenters.”

I don’t really understand this statement. I have no idea what you are referring to with: “would benefit for servers and carpenters.”

You stated: “The point is how do we get the less gifted to understand the creative trade so they may be able to play a meaningful role in the agency?”

In 2011 everyone working in an advertising or creative services agency has to be creative. So there is absolutely no room for “the less gifted.” Those people should go into government work. Agencies generate creative ideas and strategies to create and advance

Brands. Agencies sell creative ideas, it is the business and everyone in the agency has to be creative. Those who are good at it reap the rewards.

The Creative Director’s Handbook intent is to provide a systematic approach to creative problem solving for strategic business problems within the parameters of the traditional business Marketing Director or Brand Manager who provides direction and objective for the agency. Also addressed are methods for managing staff and advancing and promoting the agency itself with such topics as internal Public Relations.

Agencies do not work in a vacuum; they operate by following the directives provided by the Advertiser. Professor Don Schultz of Northwestern University has advanced Advertising Education by suggesting the merger of the MBA curriculum and Advertising curriculum – so that each understands the others purpose and how to maximize the association. The handbook uses the Advertisers directives as a start point to developing creative strategies to answer this initial directive. Many times the Brand Manager and Agency Account Director are at odds with one another because of a lack of understanding of each role and function.

After being in the advertising business for over forty years, working on the business of major international corporations, I have never had an Advertiser’s agent, a CEO, a CMO, Marketing Vice President, Director or Brand Manager, tell me anything more then their desire to increase sales, volume, and, profits. Doing this implies that you steal share from another category competitors. I always understood that the largest expense for Advertisers was Advertising produced by agencies. Occasionally I was asked to position a brand or develop a strategy to displace a category contender, or move the brand up in their given category. I was fortunate that my agency was given new product introduction assignments for Pillsbury, General Mills, Land O’Lakes and at other major food corporations. Then my agency’s creative staff would systematically approach launching a new brand – an “everything” proposition from naming the brand, designing packaging, category creative strategy, merchandising, advertising, promotion, public relations – and ongoing brand support.

We would begin first by understand the product itself. Once we understood the product we would then study the category that the product would operate in. Brand Managers had developed consumer response data to the product and our assignment was to create a brand that would find a place in the category and in the consumer’s mind. We would expect that the Brand Manager would have strategic data concerning the target consumer, the category, competitive brands' promotional materials and historic product and category information and data. The work we did included product naming, package design, strategic category positioning, and the new product introduction – promotion and introduction promotion for consumers and the retail trade. Once we developed a creative strategy for the brand we would then conduct focus groups and surveys to test the strategy.

A hallmark of our agency was that we were not in the “Telling and Selling” business; we instead developed a brand and positioned it within its category so that our target consumer would identify with, wanting to make the brand a part of their lifestyle – be that status, value, or a personal statement of who they are and what is important to them. Once this strategy was establish a campaign was developed to introduce and support the brand for four quarters with ongoing evaluation and assessment to keep the brand on course and succeeding. Strategic positioning and developing strategic promotional materials were devised to keep the brand top of mind with consumers and competitive within its category.

I was fortunate in that my agency not only became agency of record for brands, responsible for strategic consumer advertising, but also in supporting the brand with sales forces, both internal and the external sales of distributors and brokers; coordinating all of our efforts with retailers. Understanding how all of these channels operate together creates a synergy to advance the brand. Advertising is people, the people involved in the logistics to get the brand in front of the consumer, and the logistics involved in promoting and supporting the brand to keep it competitive and vital to each channel.

My agency was nationally known as a creative agency specializing in the food and beverage industry involved in advertising, public relations, design, merchandising, promotion and for using an Integrated Brand Promotion approach to keep brands strong and vital within its category and with the consumer.

The Handbook is concerned developing a systematic approach to creating brands, launching brands, advertising brands, and promoting and supporting brands to keep them vital within their respective categories. As an agency owner I do not subscribe to brand life cycles – in that somehow brands burn out. It is the agencies responsibility to identify strategic advantages for the brand to improve it, working in conjunction with the Advertiser’s marketing team.

So back to your question: “The point is how do we get the less gifted to understand the creative trade so they may be able to play a meaningful role in the agency?” As I said, the less gifted should consider a career in government. In 2011 everyone working in a Creative Services Agency have to be creative. Ideas, creative concepts are what agencies sell. This is the business, developing creative strategies, and then doing it again and again. The greater the input within the agency, the easier it is for the creative team to develop concepts into viable strategies to satisfy the Marketers or Advertisers directives.

My approach in this Handbook is to first clearly understand the client assignment, then how to establish a systematic approach to strategic and creative problem solving. My experience with my agency was that we would first develop a strategic plan that answered the original assignment – and then once we felt that we answered all of the brand’s strategic questions, we would then create the basic strategy and attempt to improve on it with several creative spins. It was not uncommon for our agency to present two or three creative approaches for client approval and input.

Another hallmark of our agency was developing a synergetic relationship with client Marketing, sharing data and input before beginning any assignment or project.

For example: We were given an assignment to develop a creative category strategy for Kix® Cereal. We had requested marketing data from the brand manager. He had organized that information into two sections: Testing with Mothers and Testing with Kids. At our creative meeting one of our writers said: “at least we know "It’s Kids Tested and Mother Approved." Hearing that connection, Kid Tested, Mother Approved® it was trademarked and is still used to position the brand today. The creative strategy had the marketing data to back up that statement.

Harry Webber told me how the Marketing Director kept pushing how well Band-Aid sticks and lasts longer compared to the competition. Thus came: “I’m Stuck on Band-Aid® Cause Band-Aid® is Stuck on Me. Marketer’s input is critical to the creative process.

Marketers have current and historic category data, historic promotional materials and marketing strategies, as well as knowledge and history of the product, individual competitors' data and information, the category data, historic brand information, and their own ideas of what they want to study and prove. Many times we would conduct local market tests of different strategies before conducting a national campaign. A cooperative synergistic approach with client marketing always yields better results and economies, and allows agencies to do what they do best: develop creative strategies that achieve stated objectives. We always did local market advertising relying upon people with their feet on the ground for strategic brand, category and retail information -- sales forces, retailers, local media sources, and individual local market data.

In the end it all comes down to developing Critical Thinking processes, and Creative Thinking processes. Why you ask? Because Critical Thinking and Creative Thinking in the context of Branding along with what all creative advertising people know: Know the Product; Know the Competition; Position the Brand; and most importantly – Know the Consumer, is the “creative side” of the advertising industry. A must know for those aspiring to be part of it. The Advertising Creative Director’s Handbook provides an approach to developing Critical and Creative Thinking in the context of a systematic approach to creative problem solving for strategic business problems within the parameters of the traditional business Marketing Director or Brand Manager who hires the agency, provides the agency goals and objectives for the creative direction for the assignment or project, and works cooperatively with the agency.

My philosophy of teaching is the result of forty years of practicing marketing communications and promotion – it is based upon the simple truth that “Creativity” and “Critical Thinking” can be taught in the classroom. The student’s Critical Thinking ability and their Creative Thinking abilities are required in the marketing communications industry. These elusive qualities are what separate agencies as well as individuals, but when they are mastered that engenders “creativity” itself.

Hope that answers your question.

© 2011, Daryl Orris.