Devoted to branding and building and protecting brands

The technology is there, as Techcrunch says, but the value proposition is shakey.

Clearwire and Sprint Nextel said Wednesday they will combine their wireless broadband units to create a $14.55 billion communications company.

The new company, to be named Clearwire, will receive a $3.2 billion investment from Intel Corp., Google Inc., Comcast Corp., Time Warner Cable Inc. and Bright House Networks.

OK, great.  More wireless access is better than less.  But a closer look reveals flaws that no amount of marketing will remedy, much less build a good business for.  The measure here is a good old fashioned value proposition – a concept that’s been lost in so translations it’s absurd.  The point:  a relevant value proposition is the cornerstone of all successful brands AND enterprises, from start-ups on up to household names in global business (such as the investors in Clearwire!).  The best value propositions for products or services contain the same three elements:  1.  Clearly articulated benefits.  2.  A price point customers are OK with.  3.  Adoption costs that customers approve of – in other words, making sure that they don’t have to go out an buy something else to starting getting the benefits they saw in the original product.  The Clearwire deal is fuzzy on all three: it’s only offering the service for @home use, not mobile.  Isn’t being mobile what being wireless promises?  Where’s the value in this that I can’t get from the big old expensive phone companies that already have brand and customer lock-in -- like Verizon and AT&T? 

As the geek world turns.  Now stayed tuned until Monday. 

Could be.  Or maybe this is more high-tech, high-wreck Kabuki.  My understanding of both, very often, is the same:  a great puzzlement.

The Kentucky Derby, or as my Brit friends refer to it, “The Darby”, is ready for its showy, annual run tomorrow.  I like the Derby.  It’s one of the closest things we have to the hoo-hah stuff the English have in Ascot, for example.  People really, really like to watch horses race.  Go to the track sometime.  It’s opera for everybody.  Almost like baseball.  Which isn’t cricket.

Yes, it’s part of the Triple Crown, but as a brand it’s always sort of stood alone, apart from the Belmont Stakes and The Preakness.  I can’t remember the first time I heard the words, “The Kentucky Derby” and I grew up in place as far from the trappings of “upscale horsey” as you can imagine.    

The KB is a brand that fulfills its promise every year.  The U. of Louisville band, the ladies of all ages in hats, the owners, the trainers, the jocks and, of course, the horseflesh.  It’s cool yet steeped in tradition like few things are in the USA.  There can be tragedy among great and stirring drama at this event. But that’s not what attracts the people.  And the same gaggle of marketers who market to the up-market demographic, the ones who line up every year for TV spots in golf tournaments and tennis, adore the action at Churchill Downs.  Can’t blame ‘em.  You can smell the money, young and old, as an old agency pal of mine use to say.  I don’t have a bet down tomorrow, but I’ll be watching.  Along with a whole lot of other people.  It’s not the Super Bowl.  But name another big-time sports event that takes just a few minutes and draws this kind of visibility.  Or cash.

Their ice cream varieties may not be plain and simple, but the idea was and is:  yesterday was Ben & Jerry’s moment in the ice cream sunshine with freebies, today B&R answers with 31-cent scoops and $100K to a firefighters foundation that assists families of the fallen.  Gotta give the feel-good edge to B&R here, but as a brand-building promotion, you really can’t beat either one.   They scream.  B & J build on their populist brand promise while B&R does good while doing well.  Makes me wish I was more of an ice-cream fanatic.  Love the brands.  One mo’ thing:  this is a promo that’s made for the digital culture: the Internet lights the fuse to quick-strike promotions.  Made to order just like a custom cone.

It creeps me out to even be writing about the peek-a-boo photos of a 15-year-old girl but it serves the purpose of illustrating a brand issue.  Specifically, how the marketing of people differs from products and services.  Seems that mega-star Miley Cyrus of Disney fame (anybody still unfamiliar with Hannah Montana?) has model’s remorse about the Vanity Fair spread she and her posse of handlers agreed to and sat in on.  This one has the added bizarre-ness of those Miley look-alike photo teasers that were all over the Net last week?  So that was NOT Miley, or what?  See. This gets confusing.

With a product and its brand, it’s all about the value proposition and the promise of the experience.  With people, especially an up-and-coming megastar (scratch that – she’s already arrived) whose whole brand promise is squeaky-cleanliness, this starts to get very dicey – another of many reasons I stayed away from personal management and entertainment press agentry.   I trust that Miley won’t be deja Britney all over again.  But Hannah and her handlers are headed in the wrong lens direction right now.  We’re talking about a 15-year-old over here!   That “G” rating is for audience, not string underwear.

We've said it here before, but the latest Biz Week piece just reminds us that luxury brands aren't bad horses to be riding when you're riding out recessions.  People will abandon their self-rewards last.  I don't mean than luxe marks are immune to bad times.  However, those $22,000 handbags from Burberry make four-buck-a-gallon gasoline seem especially surreal. Point is, in the words of retailing consultant Dana Telsey, "the media has created much greater brand awareness, and that's not going away".  We agree with her longer-term assessment that "the cycle will come around."   Indulgences and "feel good" purchases are part and parcel of economic squeezes.  Are hair appointments easier to get these days?

A new photo printing service called PhotoFiddle got exposure on the NBC Today Show (today).  The placement and the Mother’s Day timing was a publicist’s fantasy come true. I know, I’ve been there and back a few times with the scar tissue to prove it.

As with a lot of things in business, and life, timing and luck have much to do with complementing the determination and story-pitching ability of the publicist.  Yes, it helps to know the show’s producers, but the “who you know” boast of many PR agencies and people is, in my experience, easily over-sold and over-bought.  If, indeed, your sister-in-law is a producer for Oprah and can grease a few skids, it won’t hurt.  Might even make the difference.  HOWEVER: what a national, morning talkshow with big numbers continually craves is a great story: irresistible content that’s visual, explainable in monosyllables, general appeal to broad audience, timeliness, with bona fides (credentials/experience spread among articulate spokespeople), and people associated with the new brand or company or product who look like they know what they’re talking about.  

These are not easy elements to combine for “new” products.  Even when it’s a new brand from a known manufacturer, it’s not easy to score with media who bring you big audiences.  They have a lot to choose from.  Translation: there are hundreds of products screaming for attention out there on the PR circuit.  Some never make past the cold call, in terms of “getting their story told”.  And even these audiences are shrinking, but that’s a whole other story.

The “brand” aspect to this thing is simply that product PR-announcement success is step one in the process.   A stellar TV debut is not a complete go-to-market strategy.  It is nothing more or less than a great PR score.   Now that PhotoFiddle has been given The Today Show’s tacit seal of approval, it needs to amplify itself, across all media, and remind people why it’s a big deal.  This goes beyond the scope of media-relations.  

Does PhotoFiddle’s value proposition make it worth a try?  Is it that much better than what people are doing now with (and to) their photos?  Will its costs of adoption (time, learning, hidden expenses of additional stuff you’ll need to have before you can enjoy the full benefit of the product) plus the price still make it attractive?   

It’s not just the economy, stupid.  And it’s not just the digital economy, stupid. 

It’s the whole digital culture.

What does this have to do with marketing and branding?  Just about everything. 
Why?  Because marketers fail whenever they disable the kind of behavior people are culturally inclined toward.  They SUCCEED when they make it easier to do what people are already doing and liking.  And economics are part and parcel of cultural behavior and standards.  What so-called digital agencies and strategy consultants are allegedly selling is expertise in how entrepreneurs and managers alike can and must deal with this new relatively new and proliferating digital culture.  Which to a great degree, drives economic behavior and social behavior.  You can’t tell where one ends and other begins.

Warner Music has a head of "digital strategy" (Michael Nash) who is quoted by Business Week saying that the music industry has learned that the consumer is aligned with digital culture...the perspective has shifted."

Do you doubt that young people (music consumers) will drive the future of all things consumable? B2C and B2B?  They always have.

What’s YOUR value proposition for the digital culture and how are you going about enhancing it, e.g., does your site incorporate social networking tools?  Do your engage your customers and show them that YOU are “aligned” with them? 

Sometimes you can outsmart yourself.  Brainwaves?  Nope.  All you need to look at are the blips on the revenue line.  They're the only metrics that mean a damn.  I'm serious.