March 2011

I intend to focus on companies and brands which have secured a special place in markets and as it is about to pass its fortieth anniversary, Starbucks is a good place to start.

The first store opened in Seattle on March 30, 1971.

40 years later, over 17,000 locations in 55 countries and nearly $11 Billion of sales shows that there is something very special to turn the coffee house experience into such a big business with so many raving fans.

I don’t get it.

I’m told that people either love Starbucks or hate it.

I’m indifferent.

The coffee is OK if overpriced, I don’t understand the language so I’m not comfortable buying and I always find myself looking around wondering what all the converts see in Starbucks that I don’t.

The intention is to expand the Starbuck’s brand away from the coffee houses and into the supermarkets and away from coffee and towards other products too. It’s to become a lifestyle. I wish it luck but I suspect that it is a mistake.

Starbucks is in danger of losing its positioning in people’s minds – changes to the Starbucks logo.

It has successfully built up the brand as the third place – the one that is neither home or work. Again I don’t get it. In the UK, we have the pub and in Europe the pavement cafe bars which serve coffee and alcoholic drinks.

I believe Starbucks has benefited from the Friends TV show with Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Ross, Chandler and Joey because they spent too much time in Central Perk. I’m even watching the repeats in the UK because I’ve decided that I hate the ongoing misery of Eastenders.

It looks warm, cosy, fun and friendly.

But that’s not how I feel when I very occasionally visit a Starbucks – usually if I’m meeting someone who is a fan.

There’s no denying the vast number of Starbucks fans and their passion for the brand.

Facebook has a Starbucks page with over 20 million people who have “liked” it. Mind you Facebook is another brand I don’t get and perhaps I should just accept that I’m an old fuddy-duddy.

The Starbucks following on Twitter is more modest, just 1.33 million.

Can you help? Let me know what you love or hate about Starbucks and what you think about the planned changes going forward.

It may be that I don’t have a very local Starbucks and therefore I don’t get the community feeling. There’s no denying that we all like to feel that we belong and the more you go and the more you see people you know, the stronger the feeling of community.

Differentiation Strategies in Use By Starbucks

1. Speciality coffee – in locations where there were already traditional cafes, Starbucks offered unique drinks
2. Funny language – you have to be one of the insiders to know what to get at Starbucks
3. Variety of seating – from coaches to armchairs to bar stools

If you want to know more about Starbucks, take a look at the Wikipedia entry.

“Where” is one of the 7 big questions of business success which helps to differentiate one business from another but it seems that it is being abused by some food producers.

It usually refers to where you are based which may pass on convenience advantages but it can also be a mark of quality. Think German cars, Swiss watches and French wine.

More than 30 per cent of food products claimed to be local, either weren’t local or couldn’t be proven to be local according to a Local Government Regulation investigation.

It found Somerset butter from Scotland, Welsh lamb from New Zealand and Devon ham from Denmark.

Full inspections revealed that at least 18 per cent of the claims were undoubtedly false with a further 14 per cent unable to be confirmed and therefore assumed false.

It seems that part of the problem is that there is no agreed definition of what local means so the local beef you see in restaurants or supermarkets could have come from much further away than you think.

I was watching or listening to Rich Schefren recently and he talked about his positioning as the “guru to the Internet marketing gurus” which he picked up from someone.

I think that someone is me.

I did a quick search on “guru to the Internet marketing gurus” and many of the references come from my blogs.

You see Rich Schefren has been the business coach to many of the biggest names in Internet marketing, a place where the word guru is often used because of their mystical powers to make money.

It’s a very strong personal brand and positioning which no one else can claim.

It’s ironic really because while Rich has built this great personal positioning, I’d say his main product – the Business Growth System – is poorly branded.

It’s a great course if you’re a serious Internet marketer, rather than someone who plays at it to make a bit of pocket money. (Read my Business Growth System Review).

But the name is bland and I bet many people struggle to remember what Rich’s coaching system is called.

In contrast, look at what Jeff Walker has done with the Product Launch Formula. It’s a very tightly focused brand, even though the words are still generic.

Or Frank Kern and Mass Control, full of sneaky psychological tricks to get people to buy.

Or Mark Joyner and Simpleology. I wish I’d thought of that name although I’m not so keen on the book which carries it.

A quick check on Google for search volumes is revealing – exact matches for global search

Business Growth System – 36 per month (and 46 for Rich Schefren business growth system)

Product Launch Formula – 1,600 per month (and 320 for Jeff Walker product launch formula)

Mass Control – 1,000 (plus an extra 590 for Frank Kern mass control and 91 extra for mass control Frank Kern and 260 for mass control 2.0).

Rich Schefren, Jeff Walker and Frank Kern are three of the biggest names in Internet marketing in recent years. This is confirmed by the Alexa.com rankings (Alexa is an independent source of traffic rankings) and is a great way to check on the credibility of anyone who claims to be an expert in the Internet and social media.

Rich Schefren with StrategicProfits.com is ranked at 12,965

Jeff Walker with ProductLaunchFormula.com is ranked at 24,031 and Jeff has just finished another of his launches for PLF so traffic spikes sharply in the last couple of weeks.

Frank Kern with MassControlSite.com is down at 54,267.

Rich Schefren is getting more general traffic but it’s not brand related.

The problem is that his Business Growth System is a business growth system. Product Launch Formula is a business growth system and so is Mass Control.

A strong brand name can become a generic term – think hoover and xerox – but a generic name can’t become a strong brand name.

I’ve not been well recently and that means that I’ve been watching too much daytime TV.

Still it’s given me a chance to catch up with the Batman of my childhood and the latest incarnation of Superman.

Sure both wear capes and their underpants over their tights but Batman and Superman are clearly differentiated so one isn’t a pale imitation of the other.

Try the three words test.

Think Batman and what do you get?

Robin? The batmobile? Gotham City? Cool technology in the bat cave?

Think Superman and you get different answers.

Lois Lane. Man of steel. Faster than a speeding bullet? Metropolis?

Batman is strangely vulnerable for a superhero but Superman is invincible unless the baddies know about Kryptonite.

Even their alter egos are different.

Bruce Wayne is a multi-millionaire benefactor while Clark Kent is a mild-mannered, meek news reporter.

And the baddies.

While Batman deals with the Joker, the Penguin and the Riddler, Superman battles with Lex Luther.

I’ve always preferred Superman but I think that’s because I’d rather spend my time with Lois than Robin.

Or what about Spider-Man?

While Batman chose to be a superhero and Superman was an alien sent to Earth, poor Peter Parker was bitten by a spider. Just a kid about Robin’s age, he is expected to do it all.

It’s not just superheroes on their own who have to be different to capture attention.

The Fantastic Four had different skills – Mr Fantastic with the stretchy body, Sue Storm who could make herself invisible, Johnny Storm as the human torch and Thing with enormous strength.

Or the X men with Wolverine, Storm, Cyclops etc.

It is the differences which make the superheroes interesting and create a connection.

If they were all super in every way, without flaws and vulnerabilities then they’d be much less popular.

I keep telling clients “no one buys OK”.

To create a strong preference in buyers, you need to be prepared to have many others take a look and reject what you have to offer because you’re wrong for them.

Bland and boring doesn’t cut it.

The classic love it or hate it brand is Marmite.

They even marketed themselves as a love it or hate it brand.

Now Miracle Whip is following a similar branding strategy. I know little about Miracle Whip but I do think that it’s an interesting way to build on social media.

What do you think?

Are you prepared to polarise your potential customers into those that love your brand and those who hate it?

One way to differentiate your business is through branding although different people think branding means different things.

There’s an irony there since branding is meant to clarify the position of what a product stands for.

The Centre Of Brand Analysis has come up with its list of Superbrands 2011 and it contains some surprises.

There are two lists – for consumer brands and for business brands.

Consumer Superbrands 2011: Official Results

1. Mercedes-Benz
2. Rolex
3. BBC
4. Coca-Cola
5. Google
6. Microsoft
7. BMW
8. British Airways
9. Apple
10. Jaguar

Business Superbrands 2011: Official Results

1. Rolls-Royce Group
2. BlackBerry
3. Microsoft
4. Google
5. Apple
6. London Stock Exchange
7. PricewaterhouseCoopers
8. GlaxoSmithKline
9. Visa
10. Bosch

Personally I think the lists are pretty surprising but if you want to dig deeper, there are lists of top 500 brands for consumers and business.

The process that created the list is based on three stages

1. Brand researchers create a list of brands
2. Brand experts score the brands and eliminate the bottom 40%
3. The brands are voted on by a YouGov panel of more than 2,000 British consumers which is intended to be representative of the general population.

The main focus is on three issues:

1. Does the brand represent quality products and services?
2. Can the brand be trusted to deliver consistently?
3. Is the brand well known and differentiated from its competitors?

Do you agree with the list?

Are Mercedes, Rolex and the BBC worthy of the top 3 positions in the consumer list?

I don’t think so.

It’s been a few years since I last looked at Mercedes as a car to buy but what I found was that they looked nice, the dealership service was very good but when I checked on the reliability and post purchase customer satisfaction, i was shocked at how bad it was.

Perhaps things have improved a lot. They certainly needed to.

I admire Rolex for its ability to get consumers to pay way over the odds for something that has similar functionality to a watch that costs a few pounds. I’ve never owned one but again, I’ve heard some bad things about time keeping.

And the BBC?

Sorry but I think the BBC is a tarnished organisation which shows little of its famous objectivity. I am getting increasingly irritated with the biased reporting of the public spending cuts without any reference to the need to reign in the annual deficit to even slow down the rate of increase in the national debt.

Updated in October 2011

I’ve decided against writing a new blog each time I see a list of top brands but i will update this list.

Interbrand have recently published the best global brands list for 2011.

Top of the pile is Coca-Cola for the twelfth year in a row. No arguments there, but I was surprised by some other names in the top 10:

2 IBM
3 Microsoft
4 Google
5 General Electric
6 McDonald’s
7 Intel
8 Apple
9 Disney
10 Hewlett Packard

The first surprise is the dominance of technology brands. The first car company for example was Toyota at 11th.

IBM at 2 was a big surprise. I’ve little idea what the brand stands for these days and it seems to have fallen along way in my eyes from the days of “nobody got fired for buying an IBM”.

General Electric at 5 was also a surprise although this brand may carry far more weight in the USA. Hewlett Packard at 10 also surprised me.

Now I’m in the “branding is positioning in the mind” school so multi-category brands don’t fit that well with me.

Even Apple. I struggle with the idea of “what’s an Apple?”

Apart from a tasty fruit, is it a computer, a telephone, a music playing device?