All brands have a life.

Some lives are long and deliver good profits over many years.

Others are designed to be tactical with a short but sweet existence.

While far to many live short and unprofitable ones.

Why are some products a flash-in-the-pan, while others endure for centuries?

Luck and being in the right place at the right time might account for early success. However it’s the ability to adapt that gives them longevity.

Although by no means the oldest brewery, Stella Artois has been making beer in Belgium since 1366 and is one of the world’s great beer brands.

Beer as a category dates back to the 6th millennium BC, making Stella Artois a relative newcomer to the market.

There are older beer brands about but Stella Artois is a name that most beer drinkers can recall. Its popularity is so great that it is now brewed in the UK, US, Brazil, the Ukraine, Australia as well as its native Belgium.

There it is marketed as a regular larger with none of the premium suggestions the old UK tag line, ‘Reassuringly Expensive’ might suggest.

This line has recently been dropped in the UK as the beer became associated with binge drinking and was nicknamed ‘Wife beater.’

In a further testament to its adaptability, and as a reaction to the wife beater label, Stella Artois has recently adopted the new persona of Studio Artois, and is now closely associating with film.

The brand is now, or has been, the major sponsor of the Cannes, Sundance and Melbourne film festivals.

Stella Artois was the featured beer in the 2010 film ‘The Social Network’ and the only beer that Mark Zuckerberg consumed.

A few weeks ago we witnessed the falling from grace of the Labor brand in Victoria. This isn’t the death of the brand but rather a reassessment of its relevance and part of the brand’s lifecycle.

The consumers simple got tired of what it stood for and wanted to try something different.

Unlike the federal election, where there was confusion over brand identity, the consumers simple wanted a taste of something new.

They wanted to try a bottle of Baillieu rather than Brumby.

Over the last 27 years, AWARD School, the training program run by the Australasian Writers and Art Directors Association has produced some of the finest advertising talent in the country.
Their graduates have gone on to head up successful creative departments in Australia and overseas.
Their alumni read like a who’s who of the ad world.
Many have come from a variety of backgrounds, unrelated to the communication industry. This diversity gave rise to a generation of ad people who had a deep understanding of the ‘average’ consumer.
They all had a life before advertising.
There were accountants, brickies, lawyers and truck drivers.
Their campaigns were based on a common understanding of human emotions and insights. Their ads spoke to people in a language they understood, were engaging and were memorable.
It is so successful that now almost 70% of Australian creatives have completed AWARD School.
Their success meant that they moved away from the lifestyle that gave them their insights and into the rarefied atmosphere of boardrooms and big business.
They stopped going to the pub with their mates and started having business lunches at Nobu.
The life experiences they were now having were with highly paid marketing executives. Their travel was business class not standby rates with Jetstar.
They lost contact with real people and the only way they kept abreast of popular culture was by going to the movies, watching reality television or MTV.
The best writers, art directors, account managers and strategists get their insights first hand. They talk to people from all walks of life and create communication that engages the market.
If you work on the 27^th floor and look out the window, all the people on the street look like ants. This is unfortunately how a lot of advertising creatives treat the consumer and their work reflects it.

They say that there are no rules in advertising, just guidelines.
Well one of the cardinal guidelines is: ‘Be consistent with your message.’
Those brands that have been successful over the years have always spoken with one voice.
Coke stands for refreshment.
Volvo stands for safety.
Apple stands for innovation.
There are plenty of soft drinks, cars and computer brands on the market but very few of them have such a clear cut positioning in the consumer’s mind as these three.
In 1985, under threat of competition from Pepsi, Coke experimented with their product and their positioning when they released ‘New Coke’.
This was a disaster that cost them millions of dollars and a big percentage of their market share.
They eventually had to spend a lot of money on relaunching ‘Classic Coke’ which was the original product.
Politics could learn a few lessons from the marketing handbook, as far these guidelines are concerned.
There are many reasons why the election went pear shaped last weekend.
One of the main ones was a lack of consistency over the party message.
Labor walked away from the ETS.
The Liberals wanted corporate Australia to pay for a maternity scheme.
Both these moves are a betrayal of their core party policy.
Then we had the ‘Real Julia’ debacle.
People voted according to whom they disliked least or they took Mark Latham’s advice and voted informally.
The big winners from the weekend were the Greens. They had a clear-cut, easy to understand, consistent message and they got the votes to prove it.
Voting used to be easy - you either voted for the right or the left.
Now, in an attempt to become more popular, there is a merging of policies.
The right has become more left and the left more right.
It’s little wonder the electorate is confused and we are now faced with a hung parliament.
Maybe Julia should have studied advertising history and stuck with ‘Classic Labor’.

Picture this.

An unknown mobile phone manufacturer brings out a multi function smart phone. It has an extensive range of features and an excellent range of apps - and looks just great. It starts selling well, but issues soon emerge about its poor reception due to the location of the aerial. The manufacturer responds with suggestions to improve reception - ‘hold the phone in a different way’ ‘put it in a case’ - alternatively paint the sides with nail polish as some forums suggest.

You’d expect this manufacturer to get laughed out of the market… which it would be, if it wasn’t for the Apple symbol on the front.

Because as is now common knowledge, these are exactly the same problems that have befallen the new iPhone 4 (and which are being grudgingly acknowledged by Apple) - but because it’s an Apple, people will forgive and forget. Now that’s the kind of brand loyalty that companies long for.

I like Apple products and their designs - even the boxes they come in are a work of art. The MacPros we use for artwork have performed faultlessly.

But the reliability of other Apple products is woeful from my experience. My son’s iPod touch has been replaced 3 times under warranty. My iPod stopped working just after the warranty expired. Our brand new iMac tuned out to have a couple of dead pixels. Did you know that Apple is under no obligation to replace the unit unless it has over 7 dead pixels? - you won’t find that fairly important information anywhere on the box, on your warranty card, or on the Apple web site.

Only after ‘robust’ conversations with Apple was I supplied with a new screen. The next problem was the fan that refused to operate on anything less than full blast. The very helpful Apple tech at my local Apple store analysed it and deemed that the only reliable fix was to replace the entire CPU. But would that stop me from buying Apple again? Are you kidding, of course not!

Would your customers forgive you for major product or service deficiencies?

There are numerous ways you can find out what your customers are thinking about your brand and your levels of service. You could conduct an intensive phone/email survey or hold some in-depth focus groups. You could even start a facebook page or some other social media and get some feedback from there… but for a B2B marketer I’d suggest there are better ways.

I’m a great fan of finding out what customers think - after all it’s the only way you’ll really find out if you’re generally doing things right or wrong at a particular time. Of course you could wait until sales drop off, but do you really want to wait till then?

O.K. surveys aren’t cheap and you need to have a decent database (more on that topic next time).

But here’s something you can do cheaply and quickly which will tell you straight away about the health of your brand.

Select some key customers and then ask some this simple question:

‘Would you recommend us to a friend?’

What I like about this question is that there’s no ambiguity - you either would or you wouldn’t.

If the majority say yes, give yourself a pat on the back. If no, well it’s time for some deeper analysis.

It may seem fairly brusque to come straight out and ask this question but to be quite frank if you’re hesitant about asking this question you’re the person that needs to ask it most…

‘Till next time.