PURPLE SHEEP PROJECT

Wednesday 13 May 2009

Your Brand is Not Your Logo

Increasingly people (customers) are looking for stories. The story of how your product got to market. The story they can tell their friends about the discovery they made.

Right now people are more critical than ever before about spending on things with real integrity. Your brand (what you are known for), is not just a logo or a name. Your brand is your core values of what your compnay stands for and the experience you create.

Real Experiences for Real People

No more lipstik on the pig!!

"Lipstick on a pig" has been used a bit lately, The Obama campaign famously used this phrase as method of diminishing the competitors story. It worked as they struck a nerve with their audience.

People now look beyond the glitter and hype that used to sell products, services and politicians. People now question where products come from, who makes them, what is the 'Global Warming Potential'?

People want to have great experiences and to share them with people they love. Yet many organisations still believe that a paint job and a new logo will fool people into trusting their product. They also think you can have just one flagship product and a whole bunch of safe products.

Companies have been investing in the image without investing in the story.

It's all about the People

People make great companies

A recent survey of 500 global businesses showed that most businesses are adressing business downturn by investing in advertsising, cutting costs, and squeezing suppliers. These things do make the bottom line more attractive for the next quarter, but they only delay the eventual slide.

Long term business success comes from investing in the story. If your customers don't love your product, the way they buy the product and the after sales service. And if the people building your product don't love doing it, spending money on brand awareness isn't going to help you.

You need to build a culture of innovation. You need the story that gets told about you to be a story that you designed to be a great legacy. You don't want someone else deciding what the story will be.

Companies like Cadbury are waking up to this. A business founded on social values that lost its way over the years. Cadbury are now making all their chocolate from fair trade cocoa beans. Cadbury are building the story. They could have invented a new logo but that is all they would have.

Companies like Google, IDEO and John Lewis know that building a team of happy motivated people is the key to success. Creating an innovative culture, encouraging employee and industry interaction and making work fun attracts the right people, keeps the right people and gets the story told.

What is the story behind your brand?

Sunday 10 May 2009

Fuzzy Innovation

Purple Sheep & Fuzzy Innovation

Fuzzy innovation is about getting stuff done. But getting stuff done that is worth getting done.

Fuzzy as we have to explore, be open to new ideas, and always strive to be doing things in new and better ways. Fuzzy is not straight, defined, or boxed in.

Innovation as we have to have purpose. Innovation is not just a word that when added to a mission statement automatically makes a cause, organisation or product better. Innovation is an emotion, its a verb, and it is a path that never reaches perfection.

Fuzzy innovation is about building things of real value that will benefit the lives of human beings.It may be one human (you) or it could be six billion. Fuzzy innovation is a journry of anticipated discovery with some nice surprises along the way. Fuzzy Innovation is about understanding people and creating the things that will make them hapy. If it is done right, happy to part with cash in return for your creation.

Purple Sheep?

Purple sheep get noticed, where as white sheep just eat and poo.To create a purple sheep requires a specific effort. Purple sheep don't just happen by themselves you know.

But why create a purple sheep in the 1st place? Not because you can, but because it will enhance lives. Because a purple sheeps adds interest, humour and spreads joy.

Purple sheep are leaders not sheep walkers.

Modern consumers now have almost everything they need.The choice of products, services and brands is overwhelming so it has never been more difficult to make your product stand out.Television advertising, billboard and other mass media is ineffective and fades into the background, It is just noise that people try to ignore.To attract consumers now requires an extra push. But we are now in an era where consumers are flooded with choice and switched off to advertising.The way to reach the post-consumption consumer is not to take an ordinary product and slap advertising on it.

Consumers now have to be reached by innovation.People love to discuss new things and be the first. There is an element of pride in recommending the latest thing and being seen as a leader.

Consumers now switch off when they feel they are being marketed to. A celebrity in an advertisement says, 'I'm trying to sell this product, and I'm using someone else's fame as the product does not stand on its own merits.'

New marketing is about innovation

-Innovation in the product

-Innovation in the way we market the product

It's about the stories we tell and how we tell them. It's also about whom we tell them to. And who spreads the word on our behalf.

One blog entry today is now potentially as powerful as an entire advertising campaign.Consumers will, and do, look for opinions about products and services before they commit their hard earned funds.Negative comments on a blog site can be fatal to a products reputation.

So what makes people talk? We have to give them something to talk about.

This is where Purple Sheep come in.