When is it Time for Brand Transformation?

If you think of a camel smoking, a tiger eating cereal or a castle sprinkled with fairy dust, what three brands come to mind? Camel, Kelloggs, and Disney: three very resilient brands.

How well does your memory serve you? Do you remember this roadside jingle?

“To kiss a mug that's like a cactus
takes more nerve than it does practice."
- Burma-Shave

What happened to Burma-Shave? We know that like seasons, popular brands have their own winters and sometimes have to hope for a spring. What keeps your brokerage’s logo from aging into ignominy?

Sally Jenkins, Vice President of Worldwide Marketing Symantec presented at WITI’s Women in Technology Summit last week and discussed how to recognize a brand that is at risk, and how to transform it. She and her team diagnosed and resurrected Norton Antivirus by applying the advice she shares below.

She says that there are four main questions to ask yourself about your brand, to discover if anything needs to be done:

1. What is the hard data telling you? (Website hits, leads generated, etc.)
2. Are you growing? Who is?
3. What is the purchase intent? Who’s buying? Do they like your brand?
4. Are you listening to your customers? Do you respond to their concerns, questions?

Starbucks came up with an effective way to hear directly from their consumers by introducing MyStarbucksInform (MSI). Starbucks created this website to promote customers to engage in a conversation to discuss what Starbucks could do to improve their service/products. Certainly the hardest part is for Starbucks to sit back and listen. But in listening they are able to gather strategic feedback to help them mold their brand to reflect the desires of their large consumer base.

A successful brand that has changed with the times is Coca-Cola. They recently tried to engage with younger audiences. Soccer and music were important to youth, and so they worked these into their ads. They picked Somalian artist K’naan’s song “Wavin’ Flag” and branded the video with CocaCola and made it FIFA’s World Cup’s official 2010 anthem. What happened? That hit song became the top iTunes song in a week. 

Brands are now trying to break into the younger (Gen Y) segment. This is the hardest audience to break into because they don’t want to hear the classic corporate message.

The final question you should ask yourself when looking at your brand is, can you wait any longer to change?

Sally asked herself all of the above questions and tells the Norton story.

Did Norton need to change?

The hard facts showed that purchase intent was very low and sales weren’t as high as they should be.

Who had the buzz in the security category?

Not Norton. Competition was high.

What were Norton’s customers saying?

Users openly complained and socialized that Norton slowed down games and their computers, and gamers were actively uninstalling Norton to avoid this problem. It become clear that people cared more about performance than protection.

Norton was becoming fat and slow. So they looked at not only protecting computers, but functioning at a high speed.

Were they ready for change?

Yes! They needed a complete redesign and code rewrite.

The journey of the Norton brand transformation included four main areas:

1.)   Product performance

2.)   What do we stand for?

3.)   What story could we tell?

4.)   Create acts that would define them differently.

From a technology standpoint, they first focused on performance. This was a painful process, involving a complete code rewrite. The good news is that in stepping back and taking the time to be thorough, their full product download went down to 52.77 seconds!  They set the new standard of download time.

What does Norton stand for? Sally says, “We protect rights online.” She went on to explain that these include:

1.)   The right to feel safe

2.)   The right to your identity

3.)   The right to be free from exploitation

4.)   The right to be aware

Norton sent the message that they were going to fight cyber crime. Sound cool and dangerous? Yes, that was what they were after. They started to whisper that 90% of hackers are involved in crime. They said that every 18 minutes in San Jose a crime is committed, but online it’s every half-second!  

Consumer chances of being victimized by crime/accidents include:

• 1 in 300 car accident
• 1 in 31 for burglary
• 6 in 10 have been a victim of some type of cyber crime (Malware, viruses, stolen identities, etc.)

Certainly if 6 in 10 people were getting mugged, wouldn’t the media buzz? So why is it that 97% of us just think cyber crime is inevitable? Norton needed to shape complacency and energize their audience to act.

How? Edutainment. Education through entertainment. Below is an example of a humorous ad campaign Norton created to educate consumers. The below video can be seen on YouTube, by clicking here:

The results of such ad campaigns was encouraging. Norton realized a 40% increase in purchase intent by packaging the message in humor.

They created one voice and utilized social media. Their success included:

• Average customer lifetime: 4+ years
• 47% of market share
• Purchase intent is up for first time in 3 years

How can real estate professionals do the same?

Think hard mindedly about the audience you are targeting. NAR’s 2009 homebuyer profile reports that 40% of all homebuyers last year were under 35 years old. Target audience: Gen Y. What does this group care about?

What does your brand stand for?  Does your brand ignite an emotion in your target audience?

What are your local competitors doing better than you?

Have you created a social media brand? Are you utilizing the tools and resources made available to you?

Let us know your successes and questions!

Editor’s Note: This article serves to illustrate the effectiveness of edutizing (education + advertising). Not only did you just learn some strategies to help evaluate brand transformation, but with or without knowing, you also were fed a ton of information about Norton Antivirus. You now know what they do, how they’re doing it, who they fight and how successful they’ve been. This type of message is easy to employ in real estate. Educate your homebuyers and in doing so, convince them you are credible, passionate and provide a valuable service.

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