Small Brands. Real Results.

As a follow-up to Big Brands, Big Trouble, Mark and Lorraine chat about some of the small brands who have had amazing results despite relatively small marketing budgets. Before they get there, however, Mark rants about a Celebrity Cruise's article that adds confusion to the language of marketing, then we talk about what Celebrity is really doing. 

The positioning gurus talk about a local body shop, a mid-size competitor in the synthetic grass market, and a c-store -- all who are having amazing results with a focused position and focused marketing. Learn why niching yourself into a nice profit is a real thing that gets real results for small brands.

Spend 30-ish with Mark and Lorraine as they discuss all things marketing, advertising ... and positioning!

Transcript

Mark Vandegrift
Welcome to the latest episode of the Brand Shorthand Podcast. I'm your host, Mark Vandegrift, and with me is the prodigy of positioning, Lorraine Kessler. Lorraine, well, we're well into April and the flowers are a’blooming. Have you started to open your gardening beds at all?

Lorraine Kessler
Thank you.

Well, I live on a wooded subdivision plot, which sounded great when we bought here, right? They sold the woods and I'm still raking, raking, raking. I mean, it's insane. And here's one of the things. Our neighbor has like three pin oaks right by our fence and all the wind blows northwest, which means our property. And those things don't, they don't drop their leaves.

There's still leaves on this tree. And so it's perpetual because I have a lot of beds with rocks. So it's like getting plaque out of your teeth. I got all these leaves stuck in rocks. But I think we're finally cleaned out. I think we're at a point where I'm ready to put down the Preen.

Mark Vandegrift
Very good. We have oaks, or no oaks in our yard, but literally every neighbor has an oak tree. And we are cleaning oak leaves up out of our ponds, out of our gardening, or I mean, I would say through May or June, because they just don't drop until really all of the new leaves come out. You get the old leaves and they eventually blow over to our yard.

Lorraine Kessler
Yep, that's exactly what happens. And they all do blow on our yard.

Mark Vandegrift
Yeah. We already have about a dozen items in the ground. All our spring veggies that you can plant, whether another frost hits or not, it doesn't matter. And this is the first year we planted four types of onions and four types of lettuce. Plus, we planted beets, Swiss chard, peas, kale. I even want to say there was another thing in there. I can't recall what it was, but…

We're hoping the weather cooperates and we see some fresh pickings pretty soon. Our rhubarb is ready already. As you know, I love making pies, so I'm going to make some rhubarb pie pretty soon.

Lorraine Kessler
Oh, I love rhubarb pie. And we love chard, Mark, just put the bug in your ear. But you know, yeah, I love chard. It's such a great green to use.

Mark Vandegrift
Well, if everything germinates, we have way more than we need. So I will send that your way. And have you ever eaten beet greens? Good. Yeah. 

Lorraine Kessler
Oh, love beats. Yeah, and the greens themselves? No, I have not done that. No.
Mark Vandegrift
Yeah. Yeah. You can eat those too. So it really makes your salad colorful if you add the arugula in and we have spinach. Oh, spinach. That was the other thing that we put in. I was trying to remember. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, before we dive in our topic today, I'm going to rant because I think it's been a good number of episodes since I've been allowed to do that. It's somewhat associated with our big brands, big trouble episodes. But in this case, let's call this big brands, wrong words and the incessant misuse of the words brand, branding, position, positioning and just about every other reference to marketing terms. 

And I'm going to throw a headline out there for you. And it's not the headline necessarily that is the end of the annoyance. It's literally the beginning of it. But you'll see it on the video version of this podcast. “Celebrity Cruises announces new brand positioning.” Okay. 

So here's my beef Lorraine. It's not that they did this and you're probably going to laugh at this because I care, I guess, so much about words, but I just believe that words mean things. And in just the first few paragraphs of this article, here are all the terms, marketing terms that show up: Brand positioning, which is in the headline you just saw, then brand identity, brand position, visual approach, brand campaign, creative direction, and then this line “from media and advertising to travel advisors and on board.” I'm not even sure, like those are all different things.

They also use new about 10 times. So if this is indeed a new brand position, then it should be referenced as repositioning, which would be the correct term in deference to our esteemed father of positioning, Jack Trout. So let me rant for two seconds. Then after I do that, you can tell us all that's good about this announcement. 

So one, these words when used together, they lose their meaning. And without getting into the gnat hairs, here are some definitions. Okay, here's how we'd look at it. A position is a differentiated idea that maximizes the relevance to the customer and then separates from the competition. Okay, that's, it's an idea, a differentiated idea. 

Positioning then is the system of focusing all your marketing on that differentiated idea. Then branding is the system of words, images, and sounds that represent the product, kind of like a style of clothing that the product or the service wears each day, to connect the marketing back to the idea and to the customer, right? That's where the idea lives. 

So finally, a product is not a brand until the meaning of the brand is stamped on the brain. That's where it comes from, branding of cows, right? We got to stamp that idea in the brain, and that's the gray matter we're fighting for. So for those on video watching this, I'll put a summary on the screen. 

Going further, brand identity is a framework that we use as creatives to move around the personality of the brand, right, without going out of bounds and confusing customers. You don't want to be bipolar or schizophrenic in your marketing.

The visual approach, which they use that term too, is a subset of the brand identity. And creative direction are the strategies that we give to creatives to help dramatize the position within the framework of the brand identity. Now I just threw a bunch of stuff out there and they said, here's one of the first lines in the thing, this isn't just a brand campaign. Well, indeed it is, that's what it's called.

And it's designed to dramatize the position. And then I said this statement before “from media and advertising to travel advisors and on board,” that's just word salad. Let's just compare apples to oranges, to pineapples, to green beans or tomatoes or something. And look, I get that we look at things differently, but to me, this is why no one knows what anything in marketing means anymore.

This type of release uses so many terms carelessly, it's no wonder that so many folks in the advertising industry, they just throw these words out as if they're all the same thing. Okay, Lorraine, my rant is over.

This is about the use of words. I don't care about Celebrity’s announcement, but you can use Celebrity if you want as to why this move was a good one. If you want.

Lorraine Kessler
Well, I think their slogan is nothing comes close and nothing comes close to this confusion, right? And this word cell. Right. But I'll simplify. You know, first of all, the word position, right? It's not just a position, right? I mean, the modifying adjective does matter. So in other words, like there's GPS, right? Position. There are many types of position. There's defensive position, market position.

So when we're talking about position, we're talking about brand position. And you're right. It's simply a strategy. It's an idea. And that idea has to differentiate you, right? In the marketplace and in the mind of the customer. I mean, that's as simple as you get. 

Now, when you look at this article, when you look at Celebrity Cruise, I agree with you. I don't think it's repositioning at all. If they were, Celebrity Cruise already is a position. It's already in the name.

So that we always say, that's a great thing. What do I mean by that? Well, celebrity position, there's a lot of associations with celebrities that people carry around and they connect, and they figure, hey, who's treated better than anybody else in society? Celebrities, what kind of service do they get? They get service that's superior to the normal person. They get special treatment. They get the red carpet. They're elite. They get pampering beyond the normal person.

So already I'm thinking, well, Celebrity Cruise means.. what? This is a service organization, high service. It's going to be the ultimate in service. So “Nothing Comes Close” is actually a good brand slogan to kind of put into a commercial, along with some specifics about why “Nothing Comes Close.” I would need to know, like, do they hand me a hot towel to warm my face every morning? You know, what are...

Do they serve me hot cinnamon buns in the morning? What do they do, right? That really makes this, what a celebrity. Do they give me mud packs for my dark circles, which I could use? What are the things that they do? So nothing's wrong with what they're doing. It's just what they're calling it. So you're right. It's simply a new brand campaign. It's not a repositioning. It's not a new position. It's simply a new dramatization of the difference that I think they've always stood for. 

So, yeah. And this is the problem. When you get these writers who love to write, writing about ads, right? And they use these highfalutin terms, and they just throw them around willy-nilly. The ultimate is they're trying to make what they're doing seem oh so much more important than it really is. And it is, to use a word I think you used, it's more than a rant. It's just annoying.

Mark Vandegrift
Well, and if you look at it and we'll show it on screen, but honestly, without the audio to it and a couple lines, there might be a couple lines in there, but the video of it, I honestly think you could show that for any cruise line. There was nothing remarkable. They didn't visually show something different. I didn't see Cinnabon sitting at my door in the morning. I didn't see a hot towel.

I mean, it could have been Disney Cruise Lines, except they didn't have Mickey in it. It could have been Carnival. It could have been Holland. I mean, honestly, visually, it didn't separate for me. There were a couple lines that kind of hinted at things. The line itself, like you said, as a payoff, that's probably the best part about that campaign. But...

Lorraine Kessler
Yeah, but they need specifics that show how I'm going to be treated. This is the expectation they've created and the fact that they didn't walk into it is just a crime. You set an expectation: I'm going to be treated like Jennifer Aniston. Okay? What would she expect? That's what I expect. Notice I didn't use Alec Baldwin for a reason. Because what he expects is like, wait a minute. But nonetheless, they didn't do any of that. That said, my whole experience, because this is an experiential brand position about service. And that's everything I would have done is focused on that.

Mark Vandegrift
Well, you know, what would have been interesting, you know, the Snickers commercial, we love the Betty White where, you know, it's somebody else feeling like Betty White. That wouldn't have been a bad thing. Get some celebrities involved. And as they're enjoying the cruise, you see a regular person, all of a sudden, they're served by Carnival and boom, they become that celebrity. I mean, to me, talk about connecting back to your name and your position. They did use the word “unparalleled” in the article. And I think that was a great word to use because when we're thinking about putting ideas in the mind and you pull out the cruise ladder and you say this is unparalleled experience, that's great. That really is a position in the service of ways to differentiate.

Lorraine Kessler
And I would say rather than using that word, which is a promise, it's not demonstrated is demonstrated. Let me say it's unparalleled. It's better if I say it, then you as the marketer say it. That's, that's kind of where we get hung up. Like when brands would say “the most trusted advisor.: Well, when you say that about yourself, it has less value. In fact, it can have negative value. But if I say as the prospective customer or the prospect, and I say, that's the most trusted advisor. Now I win. So how do you create that without ever using the word? And I think that's the genius and the magic that advertising has when it's done well.

Mark Vandegrift
Yeah. And that's the good news in this. So that's a good transition to our actual topic today, which is small brands, real results. Okay. We did big brands, big trouble. Let's take the converse of that, make this all positive. And this comes from a listener who is inspired by our Big Brands, Big Trouble episodes. 

She asked this, “Hey, Mark and Lorraine love the big brands, big results episodes. Can you please discuss some small brands who are doing great things and having success because of their marketing.” And of course, Courtney, we can do this. So shout out to Courtney. Lorraine, let me introduce what we'll define as small. And it's just a working model because you know, small can mean a lot of different things to different people. Because sometimes we're asked, aren't you too big to work for us? And the fact is, we have quite a few small companies by what you would classify as total revenue. They're small businesses. You know, one person, two person operations, but because they are built on marketing and sales, they have relatively decent size marketing budgets. 

So, I'm going to throw out a definition and then let you throw out one that you might like, but let's define small as either geographically limited. So that could be a restaurant necessarily, whatever, or a small proprietor or budgets, let's say that are under $250,000 per year for their entire marketing spend. Does that seem agreeable to you, Thing 1?

Lorraine Kessler
I think the geographic thing is fine, but I think you have to think about the amount they have to spend relative to the category they're in, not just $250,000. $250,000 in a local restaurant would be huge, right? Right, huge. So it's proportional to the category. Right. And I think that you could be a small client with millions to spend if your category is like a trillion dollar market and your competitors are spending 10 times you.

So, I think it's important to think about small relative to category and because every category has what Michael Collins calls the cost of entry. I'm sorry, it's not Michael Collins. Michael Porter calls. You know, it happens, man. Michael Porter calls the cost of entry. And so there's a point at which you can't even get into a market you know, if you only want to spend 250,000, there's just no go. So I think if we kind of understand the caveat there, that's probably good.

Mark Vandegrift
Yeah, okay. Well, so let me go with one and it's one of our own clients. Of course, we're going to promote our own client and this is Custom Auto Body and they're our longest standing client. They're dating back to the late 70s. So, they're an example of a client who understands who they are and what they have to market. They are geographically focused mainly in Stark County here and they realize that sticking to only a few media with a very focused message is the right way to market to maximize their budget. That's the context of this question, right? I mean, at the end of the day, I got a little budget. What can I do to market correctly or market well and have success? So, every two years, we concept a new billboard campaign for them as series. And that series runs locally for two years before new creative is posted. And it's one brand-building medium.

And then they backfill that with paid search and not only paid search for getting estimates and things for people that are customers, but also for their recruitment of employees. And they also have organic social. So outside of that, they stick to what they do best. They've tested things here and there, radio in the past and a couple other things, but they fix cars, and they are the premium fixer shop in the area. So, Lorraine, you worked on this account for quite a bit. Any comments on their success?

Lorraine Kessler
Yeah, well, your local market, and it happens to be a very strong billboard market, which is very good, because auto repair is a good billboard message, right? And you need to be top of mind all the time because you never know when you're going to need them, right? It's not like the cereal box gets empty at the end of the week. You know, you got to go back and buy Kellogg's for dinner. We're just going to keep on the Kellogg thing.

So, I think that they're a testament to being persistent and more as less than doing the right media with the right kind of density at the right times with, with not giving that up. But one of the, the reason that's so important, what happened is they achieved, and research showed this when I was working on the account, but they had top of mind, number one, top of mind whenever we did market research. Now that is gold for a local competitor, right? 

And I think sometimes we're so much about positioning, we forget how important familiarity is and top of mind awareness is the measure of that. And if you have that, you're going to get twice the leads of number two, it's geometric and like it goes all the way down. So that is really, really important. And I think that Custom Auto has really achieved this through its stick-to-it-ness program to its marketing, some good advertising. 

However, nothing stays the same forever. And one of the concerns I have about them, because I'm in Jackson Township where I live, they're in North Canton. It's a little inconvenient to drive all the way to North Canton from Jackson. But I've done it. I've always done it. Even before I worked for Innis Maggiore and knew that they were a client, I would go to Custom Auto. Not that I have that many accidents, but...

But now there's two new auto repair shops, body repair shops, within five minutes of me. With the change in the competitive set, more competitors kind of surrounding custom autos home base, I think they need to re-examine their marketing and go at it more aggressively. As we said, they are or have been the top of mind leader for many years. And that means they're the leader. And only the leader can play defense. And they need to play it aggressively. 

So, I would look at what they're doing, the mix much more aggressively and I would really look at strong branding messages that puts a voice and personality to the brand because billboard isn't sufficient to do all that and the online that you mentioned they're doing isn't search, is not going to do that for them. Now the social can but again that's anybody's guess who sees it so I would be looking at some pretty strong brand marketing that they can pulse at different times.

And the other thing they should consider, I think, is opening another franchise shop or another shop. Have a separate location that moves more towards the Jackson community or the Green community where there's a lot of activity.

Mark Vandegrift
Good. Well, I pick Custom Auto Body. I'll let you pick a small brand that you'd like to suggest or having great results with perhaps what we would call a smaller marketing effort.

Lorraine Kessler
Yeah, this isn't so much a small brand, but it's a sizable company, but it's a small brand within a very, very large market, right? And I'm going to talk a little bit about ForeverLawn, which makes artificial or synthetic turf, or what's sometimes called grass, depending what term you like. And they're small, as I talked about, they're not spending small dollars for an agency such as ourselves, but within the market, which is like almost a $7 to 8 billion market, and with some very, very strong competitors, they are small. So how does a company like ForeverLawn win in this kind of thing? Well, one, they've found a profitable niche. And this is something I think all small companies need to be thinking about.

How do I find a profitable niche that I can defend? And in their case, the niche they took is the premium position. Their product exceeds, is far superior, to any other artificial product on the market in terms of its performance benefits that it delivers for each application, whether it's for pets or canine, or whether it's for sports fields or soccer or golf. Their product is uniquely designed for each application to deliver better performance. And they can prove that, they can demonstrate that. 

So, you know, by owning that position, one, we worked with them to declare that theirs isn't just artificial grass, right? There's artificial grass, that's the ordinary stuff. We're extraordinary, we are high performance turf. 

Now, anyone who appreciates or needs or wants high performance will be willing to pay more for high performance turf. So if you don't want or need that, then you're not their customer. So again, this is great positioning. So I think that they're positioned to do very well in the market. They've already done exceedingly well before this, just by simply being focused on that tier. And hopefully we're trying to perfect the messaging to attract even more people.

And then the other thing is to make sure that you're smartly investing, which they're doing in terms of the types of marketing they're doing. 

So, another one, just as one that I think you mentioned earlier at some point was Bell Stores, right? A C-store in our market. And they've had what I would call exceptional growth in a short amount of time, but very strategic in how they go after a market. They have served the whole family. C-stores are notorious for being categorized as the place for cigarettes and beer for the bubbas of the world. 

And no, they've really made family friendly… it's more than a slogan, “keep the family on full.” It really informs the cleanliness and the presentation of their stores, interior, exterior, so they really and they've created a personality for the brand with a with a character Bell [Buddy] the yellow Golden retriever who's in all of their iconography? 

And they use promotionally so they've layered on what is somewhat of a generic or commoditized business with a lot of touches that really fit the market they're going after, which is you know, they seem like a safe store, a beautiful store, a nice place to shop, nice place to get groceries, not just gas and cigarettes and beer. 

So, you know, I think that's, again, if you look at both examples I went through, ForeverLawn and BellStores, they've chosen a niche that they can defend aggressively and that they're committed to. And I think that's the secret for every small business. And in our town right now, Mark, just in Jackson Township, there's an Ohio Tea Company that just opened. And then there's the Ohio Coffee down the road. 

And you would think in the age of Starbucks, how can you out-Starbucks, Starbucks? But they do because they've returned to the experience everything Starbucks has abandoned in order to get the drive-through traffic. But the Ohio Tea, I went in there and, cause my husband was like, what's that all about? What's it all about? And I said, I went into the store and it's like total mystery to me. I'm like, this is for people who think tea is a religion. Right? It is. I mean, the people in there and the discussions they were having were like way over my head.

Mark Vandegrift
I went in there when there was a revolutionary, I don't know what you call it, but they were all in revolutionary garb and they were talking about the Boston Tea Party.

Lorraine Kessler
Oh, yeah. Well, that's it. Historically, we would have been tea drinkers had it not been for the Boston Tea Party. That is a historical fact. And we were switched to coffee because of our protest with England. And a similar thing happened with rye whiskey. Somehow, I don't know exactly the background, but it was similar. And bourbon became the spirit of choice.

Mark Vandegrift
Yeah, and it is. Bourbon is really, really popular right now. It's amazing. We're going to all these galas for fundraisers and almost all of them have bourbon, either the product or an experience, like going through Kentucky and the bourbon distilleries as one of the auction items. And they're going for $4-5,000. It's just, it's insanity, but yeah.

Lorraine Kessler
There's one called, I think, Pappy Van Winkle. When we were at the Metropolitan Hotel over Christmas Eve a few years ago, the bartender offered to pour us a glass, like a little small shot. And we're like, sure, cool. $100 a shot. We failed to ask until we saw the bill. I'm like, I don't even like Bourbon.

Mark Vandegrift
Well, you know, if you want to look at small brands that… or maybe discreet brands or I don't even know what the word is… but these craft breweries, the I don't know, I almost want to call them fashionista liquors, right? They're carving a niche for their area of the country and their particular flavoring, or the story behind the flavoring, that type of thing. One drink related one that I think of is Black Rifle Coffee Company. I don't know if you ordered from them before, but they were a small company in Tennessee and just blew up overnight because they were founded by veterans and they happened to have a story done on Fox News and now they have an online ordering system and that is great. And, um, we get coffees from them all the time and their coffee names are like Freedom and some of these other things that are related to military. 

So, I think they're a great example of a niche. They're serving veterans and people that love veterans. They've been on stations where people tend to gravitate when they're veterans. And I think they are a small company. It's become somewhat of a big company because they just focused on doing their thing and having a, you know, pun intended, a rifle focus being the Black Rifle Coffee Company. 

Before we close up here, do you have, do you have any others that maybe aren't local here because we have listeners all over the country that, you know, might jump out at you that, that, was either a small brand or is just really tightly focused and they do their marketing in a very tight manner.

Lorraine Kessler
Yeah, I mean, there's a couple. I mean, you have Bombas socks, right? Again, and every time we talk about this, they have a niche that they can be profitable in and defend profit. Now, some people define a niche as a market so small you can't make money. And I don't agree with that definition. 

As long as you don't determine your success by size, but by focus, and you can make money. I mean, if I'm a three-person company and I focus only on socks and I'm making money and I put together a cool little story that's catchy, that's fine. If I want to have 3,000 workers, that's a different prospect. 

So, you kind of have to right size your concept to the total customer market. But then there's a Dollar Shaving Club, you know, they came on and I got to believe that, you know, they kind of took some hide out of Gillette, right? Just a little and enough to be a totally novel approach to an old, old category that was dominated by Gillette. 

So I think two things that we can leave our listeners or viewers with, Mark, is that, you know, there's kind of two steps, right? Find a differentiated position that you can own alone. That's something that really sets you apart. That's easier said than done. And then two, narrow your focus by identifying a segment that is small enough to defend and stay focused on that.

And that can be a geography, an affinity to a geography. It can be, as we talked about, some of these ideas. So if you do those two things, any small business can succeed.

Mark Vandegrift
Well, hopefully we've inspired those who don't have the largest marketing budgets because that always seems to be the unfortunate reality for a lot of marketers. And, you know, one more I'd suggest, it's self-promotion, but Innis Maggiore. Our marketing budget is not on the large side in any stretch of the imagination, yet we attract clients from all over the globe.

We've had clients in Europe and Asia and South America, you name it. It shows the power of positioning and sticking to it for a long time. So, you know, we are America's #1 Positioning ad agency. And that among a sea of 16,000 agencies is a way to stand apart. And also for those that value positioning and the marketing that results from positioning and that discipline, it does great things for our clients. 

And so that's a bias pitch, I know, but we're an example of a small company that is taking advantage of the principles that Lorraine, you just listed for us. 

So, thanks for all of those who've been joining us. We do appreciate it. And if you haven't liked, shared, subscribed, or told your best friend about the Brand Shorthand podcast, please do. And as Lorraine likes to repeat…

Please subscribe, Lorraine! I'm going to say that again. And as Lorraine likes to repeat…

Lorraine Kessler
Please subscribe, it means a lot.

Mark Vandegrift
So, until next time, have an amazing day.