Our local gym has a unique room with a computerized system for cycling training. Bring in your own bike, lock it into the flywheel stand, enter your name, choose a course and pedal. The computer adjusts the tension of your flywheel to simulate the ever-changing grade of your path. Most of the courses are modeled after Ironman or Olympic races and are steep, long and – for me, at least – brutal.
Lately, I’ve been fascinated by the group dynamic in this room with its twelve cycling stations. Getting that many cyclists to agree on a single course can be challenging, but the more interesting negotiations revolve around a much larger issue. What music will we play on the sound system? In fact, many riders are so particular that they’ll plug in their ear buds and crank up their own playlist to 11, blocking out all other competing sound. The reason? When you’re struggling to beat your personal best from the last training session, inspirational music can be the difference between pushing through the pain and giving in to the temptation to quit. The right music inspires the right behavior.
During the recent Vancouver Winter Olympics, AT&T launched their “Team USA Soundtrack” campaign where customers could text and download songs recorded exclusively to inspire and support the American athletes. To explain their choice of “The Champion in Me” for the soundtrack, Brad Arnold from 3 Doors Down said, “It’s got energy, it’s a song that I think that if an Olympic athlete were out training and they had their iPod on, it might be a track that they were actually listening to, and when I was writing the lyrics to the song, I tried to keep that in mind.”
AT&T benefitted by associating their brand with musicians like Sheryl Crow, Chris Brown, Goo Goo Dolls, Queen Latifah, Nelly and Taylor Swift, as well as with the Olympic athletes. This campaign was a brilliant example of “sonic branding” that targeted customers’ sense of hearing in a way not done in the silent campaigns of print and (most) online advertising. It appealed to our desire to support “Team USA” as well as to be inspired by the athletes’ competitive drive for the gold. By listening to a common, inspirational soundtrack, customers connected with the musicians, the athletes, and – AT&T hopes – the brand.
QUESTION: How could your customers be influenced by music? What do your customers hear when they are in your physical store and does it inspire or annoy them? How well do you support your “visual” marketing and advertising campaigns with “audio” ingredients? What does your brand sound like?
Intel’s “sonic logo” has become such a large part of their branding that they are now airing TV spots with their employees singing “Bom bom bom bom!” in unison. (If you could read that and hear the music, you should recognize the power of long-term, consistent branding.) Starbucks Entertainment creates and sponsors a wide variety of CDs that reinforce their coffeehouse culture. But who has the better music experience, Pepsi or Coca-Cola?
One of my favorite TV spots is an old UPS commercial in which two “big firm” consultants are presenting their project findings to a “big client” CEO. It goes something like this:
Consultants: We think you need to integrate your global supply chain, move assembly overseas, and accelerate inventory velocity.
CEO: Great! Do it!
Consultants: [Confused looks on faces, then smirks and laughing]. Sir, we don’t actually do what we propose… we just propose it.
As a point of differentiation from UPS’s fictional consultants, I actually “do” things.
Perhaps I find this so amusing because of my experience working with “big firm” consultants and others who charge astronomical fees to deliver thick reports full of vague ideas, trite platitudes and hundreds of meaningless buzzwords that sum up to say practically nothing. At least in this TV spot, the consultants mention tactics, but in all likelihood these are broad, undefined concepts that come from their standard playbook of “strategic solutions.” (I worked with one “big firm” consultant who described a multinational, e-commerce platform for one of the largest retailers in the world as “a turkey sandwich.” I’m still not sure what that means.)
This old commercial came to mind recently after a conversation with a colleague who was finding that clients were having difficulty understanding exactly how his firm was different from other “interactive design agencies” who pitched themselves merely on the merits of their tactical execution. The problem sounded very familiar, and I realized that I had also been spending too much time and energy marketing myself as a “strategist” and “problem-solver” without clearly explaining what I actually “do” for my clients in the long run. As I often tell clients, we must be very careful what we assume our customers know and don’t know, and telling them too much is far better than telling them too little.
As a point of differentiation from UPS’s fictional consultants, I actually do things. Just like any other brand consultancy, interactive design firm, advertising agency or similar company – though likely far more effectively and far less expensively – I create actual, tangible websites, email & e-newsletters, advertising, printed collateral (brochures, etc.), social/viral/guerilla campaigns & events, logos & brandmarks, taglines & product names, real-time/mobile apps, physical store designs, employee guidelines & training, and a wide variety of other types of tactical marketing executions that make a significant impact on your actual bottom line.
Obviously, I work with some very smart partner-colleagues who help with the creation and production of all these deliverables, and each of them is an expert in their field with significant experience in executing brilliant ideas on paper, screen and airwaves. But most importantly – and the true differentiation between me/us and those other firms – is how I develop the sound strategy to determine what direction all of these deliverables should take a client’s brand and customers, then direct the execution experts to create outstanding deliverables. To read more about the process by which we can work together to develop a visionary, innovative brand experience strategy for your business, please see The Secret Formula.
We can actually do great things together, as opposed to merely delivering a list of vague proposals that you have to execute yourself. And you can be confident that our “doing” will result in tangible results that make your business far more successful in the right direction, for the right reasons, and with the right customers. Give me a call and let’s get started.