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Answer Upon - Like a Virgin-- Is Your Marketing As Fresh As Madonna's?
Developing brand value is critical to every organization and when professionally executed, delivers a clear and measurable competitive advantage to your firm. It does so by helping you establish a positive connection and value-relationship with your customer, which, over time, will build brand equity and increase brand value.Once this value-relationship is established, both internally and externally, it can be measured, monitored and enhanced periodically, as needed, to strengthen your brand’s effectiveness and increase your bottom line. Whether you’re building a new brand or energizing an existing one, developing brand value maximizes the value-relationship between corporate profitability and the perception of your brand.The AssessmentThe first step in the fine art of brandingCustomers factor brands into every purchase. The stronger the brand, meaning the clearer the position it occupies in their minds, the more value it has and the more likely they are to choose it — again and again. The goal is to get them to choose your brand over your competitions. And that’s where a s
================================
Sting is a good example of a parallel Madonna run backwards
================================
Starting out like Billy Idol, he has wound his rock roots down dramatically and enriched his music to encompass several genres and languages. It's a quiet manicured reinvention, that his fans lap up in eager anticipation
Sometimes the reinvention is loud and sometimes its soft but it's never non-existent. Pop stars are good examples because it can often take one album to make or break them. You can serve twenty shoddy meals at your restaurant and still get away with it, but they can't. Even the stars that appeared to exude stillness like Frank Sinatra, were actually living very close to their brand image and their noun and adjective.
Frank was a Coke-- He stood for classic. Likewise, that's what his music had to do. Elvis was a white singer singing black music and that's radical. Which is why his gyrations on stage fit in perfectly with his uh-huh style. On the other hand, you could only take so much of Boy George. Know why?
At the end of the day, the calories are the proof of the pudding. If you don't stand and deliver, you can reinvent to death without any change in your bottom line whatsoever.
================================
How Does your Garden Grow?
================================
For your business, there are several avenues that you need to magnify and reinvent. The main ar
Our surnames or family names are often as individual as any birthmark or DNA imprint. Surnames, unlike other names, are essential hand-me-downs of the male lineage, in each case to deliberately identify, delineate and label (as distinct from everyone else), as well as to perpetuate and celebrate a particular tradition, tribe or clan. Family names spell security, consistency, a sense of ownership, level of importance and a strong sense of history. Now it seems that some also spell automatic success.By themselves surnames do a very good job of sorting people in an unbiased way. But that was until the alphabet took over. The alphabetical use of family names is supposed to offer the ultimate in equal treatment; the fairest and most indifferent form of grouping people into manageable structured units. The twenty-six letters available offer ample room to manoeuvre. However, the alphabet has covertly assumed so much power it has become the final arbiter in our future, allowing no appeal, while it creates an elite which is subconsciously rising to the fore, resulting in the most unequal method of select
Call it what you want, but few pop stars and fewer businesses have understood the intricacies of Madonna's genius of reinvention and the inevitable end of the business cycle. Learn from the branding expert.
While Madonna soars, everyone else seems to stumble, bumble and disappear down a deep, dark hole.
So, what is it about Madonna Incorporated that has allowed it to consistently reap profits for over 18 years on the trot? And is there something we in business can learn about branding from the chameleon of pop music?
================================
What Madonna Learned from Houdini
================================
Gasp! That's what the audience would do, every time Harry Houdini cheated apparent death. Except that death was a deliberate stroke of genius to keep the name of Houdini alive forever.
Madonna seems to have used the same bag of tricks. Reinventing herself in almost clockwork fashion, she has transmogrified herself successfully into virgin, material girl, boy toy, dominatrix, media maven to working mom. And made big bucks all the way.
Out with the Cabbage, In with the Tomatoes!
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Bring out the fertiliser, Madonna's here!
================================
With green-fingered precision and lots of tender loving care, she plays along with Mother Nature. In every phase, Madonna has realised that things change with the season and accordingly dug deep to replant new shoots.
Summer plants die. Shrivel, shrivel, it's a fact of life. You can whine and whimper but if you understand the basis on which Mother Nature works, you can pretty much put it to work in your own business.
Most businesses experience growth both intellectually and physically, yet every business seems to run on summer growth. Never changing, never evolving, they hope Jack Frost will give them a wide berth when the cold days roll along. That doesn't always happen and when the business peters down, it's let's blame the economy time, when all they've done is failed to plan for the end of a business cycle.
Take for instance a big law firm in Auckland, New Zealand. Lots had changed within the firm. It had grown considerably over the years and believed that its outdated logo was the hallmark of the firm.
Simple research showed otherwise. The clients hated it. Fuddy-duddy, they called it. Yet, it had nothing to do with the law firm. The partners and the lawyers were as competent as ever, if not more than before. A simple logo change, some internal and external fix-its and Voila, they could do little wrong!
It had nothing to do with the firm or the quality of its lawyers. They had simply failed to track public opinion that had gone against them. Once they realised it, they could mend it. Once they fixed the logo (among other things), they were reborn.
================================
Replant the Garden, Don't Chop the Trees!
================================
Are we suggesting you reinvent the wheel? Madonna doesn't think so. Like a hardcore brand specialist, Madonna has actually stuck to her brand like glue.
If you look carefully, she stands for RADICALISM. Everything she's done has taken her one step higher on that scale. Every time someone screamed blue murder, Madonna was in the thick of it. She hacked the lawn, and replanted all the flowers choosing shocking pinks and bright orange, understanding all the time that it stayed in line with her true brand image.
Coke, too, tried to reinvent itself, but failed miserably. Why? Because Coke owns the word classic. People loved their Coke. It was owned by us sugar-water drinkers and no one, not even Coca Cola Inc., was going to change it. In short, that's why they failed.
Yet Coke has reinvented itself in several other ways. Its packaging has gone from sexy bottle to cans and then to 2 litre PET bottles without much drama.
It has reinvented convenience, much like McDonalds reinvented their snack to combo lunch. Realising that customers were after a better deal and their accountants were after better profits, the combo managed to put gigantic smiles on both faces simultaneously.
Let's face it. It's not just about reinvention. It's about realising WHICH PART of your business needs to be reinvented and then having the common sense to leave the rest alone.
================================
Don't Reinvent the Goodyear!
================================
Chinese gooseberries were going nowhere till they were renamed Kiwi fruit. With this re-baptism of sorts, this humble, nondescript looking fruit somehow took on the flavour of an exotic, lush green country. The reinvention wasn't earth-shaking; the results were.
Madonna does just that. While her radicalism has seen an outward change in every avatar, the core change isn't overly dramatic or complex. Every reinvention has caused her to add bold yet simple colour to her garden.
Too many marketing people change twenty things all at once. Confused customers don't care. Gradual progression they can handle and want. Dramatic change scares the heck out of them, often causing them to switch brands suddenly and permanently.
Even hardcore Madonna fans found the leap from music to movies too complex. She flipped and flopped her way through the popcorn aisles and came out triumphant on the Evita side. Yet, you'd prefer Julia Roberts to do the drama bit instead of doing a Grammy number, wouldn't you?
Simple snip-snaps you and I understand. Which is why even Einstein kept it down to E=mc2 despite reinventing everything science stood for.
================================
Can You Carry it Off?
================================
Hey, Frank Sinatra was a great singer, but he just didn't have Madonna's figure and he'd look crappy as a blonde. Which is pretty much the crux of the issue. If you don't have the ability to carry it off, you don't. Not at least in the glare of the spotlight.
Madonna's outward reinvention is her most dramatic feature, but at the same time she's plugging away at her new spiritualism and lifestyle and hopefully it reflects in the lyrics as well.
================================
Sting is a good example of a parallel Madonna run backwards
================================
Starting out like Billy Idol, he has wound his rock roots down dramatically and enriched his music to encompass several genres and languages. It's a quiet manicured reinvention, that his fans lap up in eager anticipation
Sometimes the reinvention is loud and sometimes its soft but it's never non-existent. Pop stars are good examples because it can often take one album to make or break them. You can serve twenty shoddy meals at your restaurant and still get away with it, but they can't. Even the stars that appeared to exude stillness like Frank Sinatra, were actually living very close to their brand image and their noun and adjective.
Frank was a Coke-- He stood for classic. Likewise, that's what his music had to do. Elvis was a white singer singing black music and that's radical. Which is why his gyrations on stage fit in perfectly with his uh-huh style. On the other hand, you could only take so much of Boy George. Know why?
At the end of the day, the calories are the proof of the pudding. If you don't stand and deliver, you can reinvent to death without any change in your bottom line whatsoever.
================================
How Does your Garden Grow?
================================
For your business, there are several avenues that you need to magnify and reinvent. The main are
I once had a boss who told us to never return phone calls right away. He said if you return a call too quickly, the other person might think you're not very busy. This same boss also liked to say "always make it hard for the other person to schedule an appointment with you".His logic, in both cases was that if you appeared super busy then the other person (a prospect) would want to do business with you because you're a winner. And (he reasoned), it gave you the upper hand in any negotiations. Your apparent success told the prospect you didn't need their business.Great advice!Unless you actually want to grow your business. Then it's lousy advice. Who wants to do business with someone who purposely delays responding to you and who intentionally is difficult to work with? Not me.My old boss got it wrong in a big way. He spent too much time thinking about himself and how he appeared to other people. He thought by creating a certain image, he could manipulate people into wanting to do business with him.But that's contrary to how good business works. The only sure way to ge
Most businesses experience growth both intellectually and physically, yet every business seems to run on summer growth. Never changing, never evolving, they hope Jack Frost will give them a wide berth when the cold days roll along. That doesn't always happen and when the business peters down, it's let's blame the economy time, when all they've done is failed to plan for the end of a business cycle.
Take for instance a big law firm in Auckland, New Zealand. Lots had changed within the firm. It had grown considerably over the years and believed that its outdated logo was the hallmark of the firm.
Simple research showed otherwise. The clients hated it. Fuddy-duddy, they called it. Yet, it had nothing to do with the law firm. The partners and the lawyers were as competent as ever, if not more than before. A simple logo change, some internal and external fix-its and Voila, they could do little wrong!
It had nothing to do with the firm or the quality of its lawyers. They had simply failed to track public opinion that had gone against them. Once they realised it, they could mend it. Once they fixed the logo (among other things), they were reborn.
================================
Replant the Garden, Don't Chop the Trees!
================================
Are we suggesting you reinvent the wheel? Madonna doesn't think so. Like a hardcore brand specialist, Madonna has actually stuck to her brand like glue.
If you look carefully, she stands for RADICALISM. Everything she's done has taken her one step higher on that scale. Every time someone screamed blue murder, Madonna was in the thick of it. She hacked the lawn, and replanted all the flowers choosing shocking pinks and bright orange, understanding all the time that it stayed in line with her true brand image.
Coke, too, tried to reinvent itself, but failed miserably. Why? Because Coke owns the word classic. People loved their Coke. It was owned by us sugar-water drinkers and no one, not even Coca Cola Inc., was going to change it. In short, that's why they failed.
Yet Coke has reinvented itself in several other ways. Its packaging has gone from sexy bottle to cans and then to 2 litre PET bottles without much drama.
It has reinvented convenience, much like McDonalds reinvented their snack to combo lunch. Realising that customers were after a better deal and their accountants were after better profits, the combo managed to put gigantic smiles on both faces simultaneously.
Let's face it. It's not just about reinvention. It's about realising WHICH PART of your business needs to be reinvented and then having the common sense to leave the rest alone.
================================
Don't Reinvent the Goodyear!
================================
Chinese gooseberries were going nowhere till they were renamed Kiwi fruit. With this re-baptism of sorts, this humble, nondescript looking fruit somehow took on the flavour of an exotic, lush green country. The reinvention wasn't earth-shaking; the results were.
Madonna does just that. While her radicalism has seen an outward change in every avatar, the core change isn't overly dramatic or complex. Every reinvention has caused her to add bold yet simple colour to her garden.
Too many marketing people change twenty things all at once. Confused customers don't care. Gradual progression they can handle and want. Dramatic change scares the heck out of them, often causing them to switch brands suddenly and permanently.
Even hardcore Madonna fans found the leap from music to movies too complex. She flipped and flopped her way through the popcorn aisles and came out triumphant on the Evita side. Yet, you'd prefer Julia Roberts to do the drama bit instead of doing a Grammy number, wouldn't you?
Simple snip-snaps you and I understand. Which is why even Einstein kept it down to E=mc2 despite reinventing everything science stood for.
================================
Can You Carry it Off?
================================
Hey, Frank Sinatra was a great singer, but he just didn't have Madonna's figure and he'd look crappy as a blonde. Which is pretty much the crux of the issue. If you don't have the ability to carry it off, you don't. Not at least in the glare of the spotlight.
Madonna's outward reinvention is her most dramatic feature, but at the same time she's plugging away at her new spiritualism and lifestyle and hopefully it reflects in the lyrics as well.
================================
Sting is a good example of a parallel Madonna run backwards
================================
Starting out like Billy Idol, he has wound his rock roots down dramatically and enriched his music to encompass several genres and languages. It's a quiet manicured reinvention, that his fans lap up in eager anticipation
Sometimes the reinvention is loud and sometimes its soft but it's never non-existent. Pop stars are good examples because it can often take one album to make or break them. You can serve twenty shoddy meals at your restaurant and still get away with it, but they can't. Even the stars that appeared to exude stillness like Frank Sinatra, were actually living very close to their brand image and their noun and adjective.
Frank was a Coke-- He stood for classic. Likewise, that's what his music had to do. Elvis was a white singer singing black music and that's radical. Which is why his gyrations on stage fit in perfectly with his uh-huh style. On the other hand, you could only take so much of Boy George. Know why?
At the end of the day, the calories are the proof of the pudding. If you don't stand and deliver, you can reinvent to death without any change in your bottom line whatsoever.
================================
How Does your Garden Grow?
================================
For your business, there are several avenues that you need to magnify and reinvent. The main ar
As opposed to the other food service careers, bartending is one job where personal style counts the most. The best bartenders I've known always have a personality to them, and some even have a little edge of attitude. Always remember that the whole point of your job is recreation.The best bartenders are good conversationalists. Have a joke or two ready. Read up on the news daily before your shift, so you'll be able to keep up chat on sports, politics, and business.Working in America, don't stress so much over knowing really complex drinks. About half of your orders will be for domestic beer, anyway. The non-beer orders will be something simple like a shot or a simple mixed drink like a vodka-and-coke. If somebody orders something really complicated, do your best to get it as close as you can and serve it. Bar etiquette nearly demands that the customer accepts whatever you pour as your version of what they ordered, and anybody who is enough of a troublemaker to ask for a Long-Island Iced Tea when you're slammed busy with a full bar generally deserves whatever you put in their glass, and pr
If you look carefully, she stands for RADICALISM. Everything she's done has taken her one step higher on that scale. Every time someone screamed blue murder, Madonna was in the thick of it. She hacked the lawn, and replanted all the flowers choosing shocking pinks and bright orange, understanding all the time that it stayed in line with her true brand image.
Coke, too, tried to reinvent itself, but failed miserably. Why? Because Coke owns the word classic. People loved their Coke. It was owned by us sugar-water drinkers and no one, not even Coca Cola Inc., was going to change it. In short, that's why they failed.
Yet Coke has reinvented itself in several other ways. Its packaging has gone from sexy bottle to cans and then to 2 litre PET bottles without much drama.
It has reinvented convenience, much like McDonalds reinvented their snack to combo lunch. Realising that customers were after a better deal and their accountants were after better profits, the combo managed to put gigantic smiles on both faces simultaneously.
Let's face it. It's not just about reinvention. It's about realising WHICH PART of your business needs to be reinvented and then having the common sense to leave the rest alone.
================================
Don't Reinvent the Goodyear!
================================
Chinese gooseberries were going nowhere till they were renamed Kiwi fruit. With this re-baptism of sorts, this humble, nondescript looking fruit somehow took on the flavour of an exotic, lush green country. The reinvention wasn't earth-shaking; the results were.
Madonna does just that. While her radicalism has seen an outward change in every avatar, the core change isn't overly dramatic or complex. Every reinvention has caused her to add bold yet simple colour to her garden.
Too many marketing people change twenty things all at once. Confused customers don't care. Gradual progression they can handle and want. Dramatic change scares the heck out of them, often causing them to switch brands suddenly and permanently.
Even hardcore Madonna fans found the leap from music to movies too complex. She flipped and flopped her way through the popcorn aisles and came out triumphant on the Evita side. Yet, you'd prefer Julia Roberts to do the drama bit instead of doing a Grammy number, wouldn't you?
Simple snip-snaps you and I understand. Which is why even Einstein kept it down to E=mc2 despite reinventing everything science stood for.
================================
Can You Carry it Off?
================================
Hey, Frank Sinatra was a great singer, but he just didn't have Madonna's figure and he'd look crappy as a blonde. Which is pretty much the crux of the issue. If you don't have the ability to carry it off, you don't. Not at least in the glare of the spotlight.
Madonna's outward reinvention is her most dramatic feature, but at the same time she's plugging away at her new spiritualism and lifestyle and hopefully it reflects in the lyrics as well.
================================
Sting is a good example of a parallel Madonna run backwards
================================
Starting out like Billy Idol, he has wound his rock roots down dramatically and enriched his music to encompass several genres and languages. It's a quiet manicured reinvention, that his fans lap up in eager anticipation
Sometimes the reinvention is loud and sometimes its soft but it's never non-existent. Pop stars are good examples because it can often take one album to make or break them. You can serve twenty shoddy meals at your restaurant and still get away with it, but they can't. Even the stars that appeared to exude stillness like Frank Sinatra, were actually living very close to their brand image and their noun and adjective.
Frank was a Coke-- He stood for classic. Likewise, that's what his music had to do. Elvis was a white singer singing black music and that's radical. Which is why his gyrations on stage fit in perfectly with his uh-huh style. On the other hand, you could only take so much of Boy George. Know why?
At the end of the day, the calories are the proof of the pudding. If you don't stand and deliver, you can reinvent to death without any change in your bottom line whatsoever.
================================
How Does your Garden Grow?
================================
For your business, there are several avenues that you need to magnify and reinvent. The main ar
Begin With The End In MindBefore your ad can come to life, you must know what its purpose is going to be and how you are going to attract a new customer.Write down a summary of your needs, a precise description of what you’re promoting, and most importantly, the results you expect from the ad.Sell The Sizzle Not The SteakYour advertising must always sell at least one major benefit (and hopefully more) to a prospective customer. In the ad business, a benefit can be defined as something about the product or service that is helpful or advantageous to the customer. For example, the benefit of owning a car equipped with an airbag is that you are protected from injury in an accident.Benefits motivate people to buy, not the inherent characteristics of a product or service. Charles Revson, the founder of Revlon, once wrote, “In the factory we make cosmetics. In the store we sell hope.”Hone In On The BenefitsTo “sell the sizzle” you must first determine what your primary benefit will be. Ask yourself: what one thing makes my business differen
Madonna does just that. While her radicalism has seen an outward change in every avatar, the core change isn't overly dramatic or complex. Every reinvention has caused her to add bold yet simple colour to her garden.
Too many marketing people change twenty things all at once. Confused customers don't care. Gradual progression they can handle and want. Dramatic change scares the heck out of them, often causing them to switch brands suddenly and permanently.
Even hardcore Madonna fans found the leap from music to movies too complex. She flipped and flopped her way through the popcorn aisles and came out triumphant on the Evita side. Yet, you'd prefer Julia Roberts to do the drama bit instead of doing a Grammy number, wouldn't you?
Simple snip-snaps you and I understand. Which is why even Einstein kept it down to E=mc2 despite reinventing everything science stood for.
================================
Can You Carry it Off?
================================
Hey, Frank Sinatra was a great singer, but he just didn't have Madonna's figure and he'd look crappy as a blonde. Which is pretty much the crux of the issue. If you don't have the ability to carry it off, you don't. Not at least in the glare of the spotlight.
Madonna's outward reinvention is her most dramatic feature, but at the same time she's plugging away at her new spiritualism and lifestyle and hopefully it reflects in the lyrics as well.
================================
Sting is a good example of a parallel Madonna run backwards
================================
Starting out like Billy Idol, he has wound his rock roots down dramatically and enriched his music to encompass several genres and languages. It's a quiet manicured reinvention, that his fans lap up in eager anticipation
Sometimes the reinvention is loud and sometimes its soft but it's never non-existent. Pop stars are good examples because it can often take one album to make or break them. You can serve twenty shoddy meals at your restaurant and still get away with it, but they can't. Even the stars that appeared to exude stillness like Frank Sinatra, were actually living very close to their brand image and their noun and adjective.
Frank was a Coke-- He stood for classic. Likewise, that's what his music had to do. Elvis was a white singer singing black music and that's radical. Which is why his gyrations on stage fit in perfectly with his uh-huh style. On the other hand, you could only take so much of Boy George. Know why?
At the end of the day, the calories are the proof of the pudding. If you don't stand and deliver, you can reinvent to death without any change in your bottom line whatsoever.
================================
How Does your Garden Grow?
================================
For your business, there are several avenues that you need to magnify and reinvent. The main ar
Idealism and motivation have been my foundation. Education and encouragement have been my support. The dream of financial freedom and security has been my goal.Choosing the entrepreneurial journey is one of the riskiest paths to travel. The harsh truth that one realizes while traveling the path is that many people will fail along the way. It would be a lie on my part to state that I have never been apart of a failed idea. Understanding that failure is an inevitable certainty of being an entrepreneur is the first step toward obtaining success. Remember, you must learn to crawl before you can walk.Overcoming failure is the defining characteristic that separates the successful from the unsuccessful. Many people take failure as finality. It has been my experience that many new entrepreneurs must change careers, because the impact of a failure bears too heavily on their souls. These are the people that journey off the path because of small bumps in the road. That is all failures are, "small bumps." Once one realizes that one can simply "walk around" the bumps, success becomes the new inevitabi
================================
Sting is a good example of a parallel Madonna run backwards
================================
Starting out like Billy Idol, he has wound his rock roots down dramatically and enriched his music to encompass several genres and languages. It's a quiet manicured reinvention, that his fans lap up in eager anticipation
Sometimes the reinvention is loud and sometimes its soft but it's never non-existent. Pop stars are good examples because it can often take one album to make or break them. You can serve twenty shoddy meals at your restaurant and still get away with it, but they can't. Even the stars that appeared to exude stillness like Frank Sinatra, were actually living very close to their brand image and their noun and adjective.
Frank was a Coke-- He stood for classic. Likewise, that's what his music had to do. Elvis was a white singer singing black music and that's radical. Which is why his gyrations on stage fit in perfectly with his uh-huh style. On the other hand, you could only take so much of Boy George. Know why?
At the end of the day, the calories are the proof of the pudding. If you don't stand and deliver, you can reinvent to death without any change in your bottom line whatsoever.
================================
How Does your Garden Grow?
================================
For your business, there are several avenues that you need to magnify and reinvent. The main areas that you need to look at are:
1) Your Communication: Logos, Newsletters, Emails, etc. Do they really meet your clients' needs? Have you got so busy doing things that you've forgotten to reflect your true worth to your clients?
2) Your Customer Loyalty: Are you stretching these parameters? Are they getting less or more loyal? If yes, why? If no, why not? What do you need to reinvent and re-analyse? And do you have a customer loyalty program at all?
3) Your Failure Analysis: This is a biggie. If you're not analysing and welcoming failure, you're going to be stuck on your island for so long, that you'll sink once global warming gets worse. If you want to double your success rate, you've got to double your failure.
The Key to Reinvention is Simple a)You've got to die a thousand deaths and come out on the other side. b)Simplicity is the key. c)Your brand image is money in the bank. Don't ever change it. d)Wear the mini only if you can carry it off. Remember there's a market for minis and gowns simultaneously.
While you're reading, Madonna will be hard at work on the next step. Isn't it time you got to work too?
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