The Magic of Magic Hat

Magic Hat, for those who don’t know but should, makes beer. Really good beer. Beer lovers’ beer. Hoppy, complex, flavorful, and often wonderfully bitter. Not your garden variety swill here. Magic Hat is very good at making beer. They are also incredibly good at marketing and brand management. They have built their brand based on magic, Halloween, and Mardi Gras imagery with a hippy aesthetic. They carry that brand throughout everything they do. Cartons, labels, product names (such as the new Hex). Even the factory reflects their image of whimsical scariness.

The Sticker Licker!

On the factory tour (which is actually called the Artifactory) in South Burlington Vermont, they have massive signs that explain what all the machines and process steps are. They are not your typical bland signs though. For example, the labeling machine has been given the moniker “Sticker Licker”. All the signs, of course, reflect the corporate color palette. The tasting room is like none I’ve ever been in (and I’ve been in … a few). Ambient light is kind of orange and dim but not too dim to read. It’s weird and edgy without being threatening. The soundtrack is decidedly hippy with lots of Grateful Dead and Cream. The signage is, like their labels and cartons, in keeping with the overall look and feel of the product.

Everything about the tasting room screams the Magic Hat brand. 

 

You might be asking yourself “What has this to do with technology?” That’s okay. Go ahead, I’m not insulted. I’ve not gone off the rails. In fact, it has everything to do with technology. Technology folks forget that technology is usually realized as a product. Products are bought and sold and how we manage to do that is important. The type of tight brand and product management that you see at Magic Hat is the same that you see at companies like Apple. Everything connects. They have a playbook and stick to it. Deviation from form is not a good thing. It confuses consumers and makes it hard for them to connect to your products.

I can still hear you out there saying “Well, we don’t make consumer products so this doesn’t apply.” What?! You have consumers too, no matter who you are. You might call them customers, clients, or fellow employees but someone is consuming  the stuff you make. Branding matters to them for these reasons:

1. It provides a point of reference. When you see an HP computer you know it’s an HP because of it’s design elements. This is why monkeying around with your logo is a dangerous thing. Not just the logo either but colors, shapes, packaging, the whole tragedy.
2. It attracts people. Consumers need to know about what you have to offer. Branding helps cut through the white noise of the marketplace. It doesn’t matter if it’s the whimsy of a beer company or the messaging of an OEM tech company. Folks need a reason to listen to you. Your being there isn’t enough.
3. If coupled with great product, it builds loyalty. The ultimate goal of branding is to associate your product with some set of emotions that makes them want to keep in touch and consume more. And to tell all their friends too.

So much technology marketing is bland and gyrating, changing with every new model. Shifting branding causes confusion. Again, the technology master here is Apple. You can instantly recognize their products, logo, even color schemes. It changes over time but always in line with the overall branding. Their brand changes incrementally not radically.

Now, there are reasons for radical brand transformation. If the brand has gotten so stale it sends the wrong message, it may need a facelift. If something very bad has gotten connected with your current brand, then a reboot may be in order. Radical restarts of a brand without real need are usually disastrous. New Coke anyone? Didn’t think so. As the Magic Hat (and Apple) example shows, brand is not just a logo. It’s everything from the box it ships in to the design of the product to social media. It all has to come from the same source, from the same core.

So, tech companies have a lot to learn from how a small company like Magic Hat makes it’s presence known in a very competitive field. Take marketing beyond just a graphics manual and encompass all aspects of the company and products. At Magic Hat, even the guy pouring beer in the tasting room exuded the Magic Hat brand. That is the only way to attract and keep customers. That and awesome product. Don’t forget that. Magic Hat would be nothing if the beer was lousy. And their beer is anything but lousy.

A Swift Kick In The Apple

I’m not a great believer in schadenfreude. Finding joy in other people’s misery does not say something positive about me so I try not to engage in it. However, with some companies, it’s too tempting to ignore.  Apple is one of those companies. In my opinion, they sell a lot of style over substance. Pretty much anyone who has developed for Apple environments such as the iPhone or Mac will attest to them being control freaks. They are the epitome of a closed system. Apple, and Apple alone, decides if your App gets to be in the App Store. They are not exactly forthcoming with the criteria for rejection either. At times it has appeared that they were rejecting apps from competitors for all the wrong reasons. They make Microsoft seem like Open Source.

So, it was with a bit of guilty glee that I have followed the latest iPhone 4 debacle. Why, because Apple approached it with their usual arrogance. Even though it was obvious to a first year Electrical Engineering major that there was a problem with the antenna, they denied it. It wasn’t the signal that was wrong, they said, it was how the software measured it. The first thought that came to mind was “So, it’s always had a lousy signal. Silly us. Thanks for pointing that out.”

Now, they are suggesting but not really admitting that they may have an antenna problem. Still, the reaction is slow. Everyone has to wait for a press conference starring Steve God… I mean Jobs. This is classic Apple. They think they can fix this with a marketing event. The arrogance is astounding.

Here's a quick lesson in Crisis Management 101. First, you admit that you may well have a problem, that your customers are not stupid rubes who don’t know how to hold a phone. You don’t blame partners and faceless engineers. Second, you investigate quickly and offer to replace the product if there is indeed a hardware problem. You let anyone return the product whether you can prove there is a problem or not. Most people won’t but it’s the kind of gesture customers appreciate. Finally, you fix or replace all the problem devices for free. Even if you take it on the chin financially in the short term, you will have built long term value and enhanced your brand. For a company dependant on brand, like Apple, this was an opportunity to build long term loyalty.

What you don’t do is deny that there is a problem before you’ve even investigated it. You don’t act like your customers are morons. Most importantly, you don’t tell everyone to shut and up and take what you give them. This type of attitude takes an opportunity to connect with customers and turns it into a lot fewer customers.

More than anything else, you check your ego at the door. You act humble, sorry for the pain that you caused your loyal and beloved customers. This seems to be something that Apple is genetically incapable of doing. You think they would have learned from the recent Toyota debacle. Silence is deadly here. Arrogance is even worse.

At one point in my career, I was on both sides of this type situation at once. Network boards that we had been shipping were failing. Most were caught by our manufacturing QA engineers. Those that weren’t we offered to take back from customers even if they hadn’t seen problems yet. The contract manufacturer tried to deny that there were problems at all. Then they tried to deny that they had anything to do with it even when we showed them the defects. Finally, we had to threaten to pull all of our business from them. Suddenly, they were willing to admit and rework all the boards. Needless to say, we weren’t looking to send them any new business. We no longer trusted them.

This is classic Apple. Too bad. They had an interesting opportunity to make their customers trust them, to grow loyalty, and turn a bad situation into a positive one. They’ve done the opposite. In the long term, this will haunt them.

Let’s Get Something Clear About Transparency

I have noticed a lot of bloggers coming clean about how their blogs are influenced by who they work for. One of my favorite bloggers, Marc Farley (aka 3PARFarley) recently published his statement. To say I was not in the least surprised to find that 3PARFarley worked for 3PAR is a bit of an understatement. His tongue and cheek blog can be found at http://doiop.com/mfmotives

Never to let an opportunity go by to get some traction from the work of others, I wish to add my own transparency statement. Here it goes:

Unlike so many other bloggers, I can honestly say that my blog is not influenced by any company. That’s because I am not part of any company. It’s not what I would choose but it gives me the opportunity to say “No one tells me what to do (other than my wife)!” For the right money I’m willing to change all that. Not the part about the wife. I would never change that. Love ya honey.

I write what I write because I think it’s right. Or maybe because I’m a blowhard who likes to hear himself talk. Perhaps it’s so that I don’t have to find meaningful employment and can call myself a blogger instead. It could be a mental illness such as Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Who knows. Or it could be that the aliens tell me to write. Good thing they don’t tell me what to write because then this would be one big horrible lie. I couldn’t live with that.

I don’t like to admit this but this has not always been the case. Not the part about aliens silly. They’ve always been there. No, the company part. I have blogged for companies that I worked for and it surely influenced my personal blog. Not in the form of shilling for the company (that’s what corporate blogs are for) but in staying away from certain topics or companies so as not to offend someone who contributed to my livelihood. The unfortunate accident of my current situation frees me from that worry. I am now truly free to annoy anyone I choose… unless I’m interviewing with them. Then I have to wait until they stop calling back to use them as a piñata. Just kidding about the piñata part. No really. No worries. But next time get a non-disclosure…

My problem with transparency statements (mine and Marc’s excluded of course) is that they assume that we are all too stupid to figure out that most blogs are sponsored, paid for, or otherwise influenced by a corporation. Come on folks! What ISN’T manipulated by a company these days? Please don’t act like anyone is hiding something. Gosh, what was the giveaway? The corporate logo on the top of the page? How about the bio that starts with “I work for (insert company name here)”? I’m not cynical, just realistic. Even most of the so-called private blogs say things like “These views do not reflect the views of my company.” The heck they don’t. Let’s have someone lambast the CEO and see if the disclaimer saves his job. Of course it won’t so you stay away from certain topics. That’s influence. See the advertising on the blog? Do you think that comes without strings? Sorry but no. The first time you lose an advertiser because of what you write you learn quickly not to write that again. It might not even be conscience but it’s there all the same.

To the folks who cry about transparency and journalistic integrity I have this to say: This is not journalism. It’s commerce. Most blogs that don’t come out of a new agency are a form of advertising. I would make a Fox News joke now but I hear they have mean lawyers. Just kidding. I love you legal guys.

Most people get that. It doesn’t mean there isn’t value in what the blogger writes but it is, at least partly, marketing. If you can’t tell if someone is selling you something then assume they are. Even me. I’m not but it’s better that you assume I am if you aren’t sure. Trust me on that.

Finally, I’ll leave you with this pledge:

I’m not selling you anything but truth. I’ll NEVER sell you anything but truth. Remember that when I go to work for a big company. I’ll never change. Not even then. I’m just like that. You can take that to the bank.

At least for now.

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Broadcasters Throwing Away 70 Years Of Practice

It amazes me that an entire industry, when faced with something a little bit new, can suddenly forget everything they have ever learned. TV broadcasters (who started as radio broadcasters) and their advertising agencies seem hell bent on tossing out every lesson from the past 70 years as they branch out into Internet media.

Case in point – CBS. CBS doesn’t participate in Hulu unlike every other major and quite a few minor networks. Instead, they go it alone. To me that just means cutting off an avenue of distribution. That’s like refusing to put out your old programs on VCR and then DVD.

That, however, is not where they really drop the ball. Their worst mistake is when they forget decades of advertising wisdom on CBS.com. What do they do? They run the same commercial at every break in the online program. Every time. Over and over and over again. That flies in the face of all that we know about how to advertise in a broadcast medium. After the first run, no one is paying attention. By the fourth run you’ve actually annoyed your potential customer into no longer being a potential customer. It is not enough that you remember an ad. You have to not hate it too. Otherwise, that irritation translates to the product. You remember the product alright but not in a good way. There is a reason that one spreads ads out over time. It guards against desensitization of the message.

CBS.com goes a step further and will play multiple instances of a commercials in a row. The same commercial. It’s not enough for them to blast the same ad at you three times during the course of a program. They have to give it to you three at a time. That takes you from irritated to numb. Numb to their message, numb to their value proposition and numb to the product. In other words, completely desensitized.

Make no mistake – online programming is still broadcast media. It’s delivered through the Internet but is no different from TV on-demand broadcasting in every other way. On-line broadcasters seem to forget this. They treat the Internet delivered program as something alien and deliver advertising in ways that they never would over the airways or cable. On TV, if you see a commercial run twice during one show, you assume it’s a mistake. Oops! For shows delivered via the Internet, it is the norm.

Broadcasters forget this again when they try to add false interactivity into the show. They don’t allow you to do obvious Internet actions like mouse over a character and have his or her bio popup. You can’t pause a show that has a product placement in it and get information about a product that interests you right there and then. Nope. Instead, they give a choice of what silly commercials (they call it an “experience”) you want to see again and again. Unfortunately, there is no “None” option available. Why not vary the product placements from showing to showing. For digital media that’s not that hard to do. TV Sports does it all the time. Next time you watch baseball on TV look behind the batter. The little sign changes and is localized. You could do that on a TV program with a billboard in the background for instance or change what’s playing on a TV set.

The behavior of CBS.com is probably the most egregious of the broadcasters but you see the same advertising patterns in all of them and on Hulu. They constantly run ads in ways that they never would on TV. Instead, they let opportunities go by for more interesting interactive behavior. Broadcasters don’t seem to know how to embrace the potential of Internet delivered shows while forgetting everything they know from 70 years of TV and radio broadcasting.

Broadcasters have to get this right and soon. The Internet is quickly becoming a major form of delivery for their products. Advertising is advertising. A commercial is a commercial. That doesn’t change because it’s delivered in packets instead of electromagnetic radiation. Sorry but the Internet did not change everything.

How To Mess With Your Brand in One Easy Lesson

I usually write about technology or the computer industry. It’s what I do. Every once in awhile though, I see such marketing idiocy in other industries that I can’t help mention it. Today was one of those days. According to the New York Times GM wants the people who work for the Chevrolet division to stop using the word “Chevy” in reference to their cars. It appears that they only want to use Chevrolet. That tips over from a simple “Huh?” to “What the…?”

Chevy is not just a nickname. It is an integral part of the brand and has been for longer than I’ve been alive. It’s not a ‘57 Chevrolet Bel-Air. It’s a ‘57 Chevy! No one calls the flagship pony car a Chevrolet Camaro. Everyone knows it as the Chevy Camaro. That is awesome branding. And Chevy rhymes with heavy as in heavy metal which makes us think of loud music and fast cars. That’s what men especially like in cars. Why mess with that?

The stated reason is (now get this) to build a stronger brand through consistency. Okay, I get it. Take away one of the most recognizable, most salient parts of your brand to make it stronger. Wait. I don’t get it because it makes no sense. Emerson was right when he said “ A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds”. It doesn’t get more foolish than this.

There are several reasons why customers attach a nickname to a company, product, or brand. They are:

• The real names is long. This is why we don’t say “International Business Machines”. IBM is easier on the eyes and tongue.
• The official name is lame and/or stupid. Really, there is a reason Apple doesn’t make everyone say Apple iPhone. It’s a great fruit but not a great name. The logo is iconic and the Mac and “i” branding are memorable. Apple was smart enough to stop stapling their real name in front of everything back in 1984.
• The nickname better captures the brand. Great names capture something about the brand that speaks to the audience. What says total car awesomeness better, Chevrolet or Chevy?
• The company or brand is named after a real person or persons. Often companies named after founders sound like a law firm. That’s okay if you happen to be a law firm. Otherwise, not so much.

HP is a great example of the power of a nickname over the official name. The real name (Hewlett-Packard Company) is long and sounds like a CPA firm. If they were to insist that everyone in the company call it Hewlett-Packard and never say HP, it would look downright silly. Those two letters represent the natural brevity and tendency to toss around acronyms that is part of the computer industry. The nickname “HP” has become a big part of the brand and hopefully they would never mess with that.

This is yet another indication of a company that has lost its way. Can you imagine Ford saying “Don’t let me catch you referring to the Mustang as a “‘Stang"? No. They’re not that stupid. They realize (I hope) that that kind of identity is like free extra cheese on your pizza. Viral brand identity is a precious gift so why screw with it.

What is ironic is that this is a company that has no problems with GM instead of General Motors. So, GM, hear me now – I will never buy a Chevrolet. I might, however, buy a Chevy. Especially if it’s a Chevy Camaro. Even better if it’s free.