A PR War Triggered by a Graphic Design Choice

As my colleague, Tim Kane has said, “People don’t buy brands. They join them.”

This was amply demonstrated this summer when Ikea unleashed a major global brouhaha by swapping its signature typeface — a customized version of Futura — for Verdana, a simpler, cheaper and more widely available font, originally created by Microsoft specifically to be used on the Web. (On his blog, Mattias Åkerberg compares and contrasts the two fonts.)

The reaction was swift and passionate. An article by Lisa Abend in TIME magazine quotes some typical responses: “‘Ikea, stop the Verdana madness!’ pleaded Tokyo's Oliver Reichenstein on Twitter. ‘Words can't describe my disgust,’ spat Ben Cristensen of Melbourne. ‘Horrific,’ lamented Christian Hughes in Dublin.”

In my opinion, the real problem is that Ikea is widely known for the unpretentious and simple — but beautiful — design of its furniture. Its original typeface fit the company’s style and, thus, supported the company’s brand. With the switch to Verdana, Ikea seems, to its some of its most hardcore fans, to be surrendering its originality and credibility for expediency … and violating its brand promise.

Don’t Mess with My Brand!

Want more proof that the company doesn’t own your brand … its customers do?

This month, Pepsico will be scrapping some expensive changes to the packaging of one of its flagship products, Tropicana Pure Premium orange juice. The longtime Tropicana brand symbol, an orange impaled by a straw, had been replaced by the image of a glass of fresh orange juice.

Tropicana’s customers were furious about the brand makeover, describing it in letters, e-mail messages and telephone calls as “ugly” and “stupid,” and saying that it resembled “a generic bargain brand,” according to The New York Times.

Bowing to popular pressure, the original version of the packaging will be brought back next month. According to Tropicana president Neil Campbell, it wasn’t the sheer volume of the outcries that led to the corporate change of heart, it was the fact that the criticism came from some of the Tropicana’s most loyal consumers.

As my colleague Tim Kane has written, “People don’t buy brands. They join them.” You interfere with that relationship at your own risk!

The Decentralization of Brand Building

Powerful, complex and volatile, a brand is often a company, product, service or individual’s most important competitive differentiator. While marketing, public relations and advertising can help to preserve, protect and enhance the brand, it’s important to recognize that, ultimately, the brand is a collection of perceptions in the minds of your stakeholders. That was never truer than today, at a time when the Internet has empowered its 1.6 billion users to tell the world—loudly, instantly and continuously—when a brand is failing to live up to its promise.

The reverse is equally true, as I was reminded today when I happened on a video called “If I Made a Commercial for Trader Joe’s” on YouTube, which its creator, San Francisco-based Carl Willat, says he “shot on my Palm Treo before I accidentally ran over it with my car.” It’s hard to imagine a paid commercial that would have the power of this three-minute-long, unofficial, fan-made riff on the unique quirks and pleasures of Trader Joe’s.

The video was posted on YouTube on January 27. By February 12, it had been downloaded nearly 124,000 times and it had swept the blogosphere, with hundreds of thousands of references and links. The vast majority of comments were made by people who talked about why they loved Trader Joe’s … reinforcing the retailer’s brand promise of being a place where “value, adventure and tasty treasures are discovered, every day.”

The Power of a Well-Managed Brand

My politics are my own business, but I have to give “props” to the team behind the Barack Obama branding initiative.

Not only is the campaign’s red, white and blue logo — an “O” which evokes a rising sun — simple, effective and easily identifiable, but it sometimes seems as if the campaign’s volunteers have been issued copies of a style manual … and they’re actually paying careful attention to it! Campaign communiqués are all set in Gotham, an elegantly simple font that gives a very American look to all the campaign’s communications, including its website.

In the interest of bipartisanship — and because this blog entry should in no way be construed as an endorsement of any political candidate — you should also check out the websites of candidates John McCain and Hillary Clinton for comparison.

Branding the Professional Services Firm

Uh-oh. Real GDP is not expected to “grow much, if at all, over the first half of 2008 and could even contract slightly,” Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke recently told Congress's Joint Economic Committee.

You can’t afford to let short-term economic conditions compromise long-term goals … especially if you operate in the professional services space — e.g., as an accountancy, law, wealth management and personal finance advisory firm. Look at tough economic pressures as a growth opportunity and consider the following seven brand-building strategies for your organization.

1. Concentrate on core values. Understand who you are and what you offer and communicate simply and directly.
2. Make a commitment to investment. Establish an adequate budget. Consider retaining an outside specialist firm to execute.
3. Prioritize your constituencies. You can’t reach everybody. Hone in on your most important constituencies.
4. Focus on your clients’ needs. Forget features; promote benefits.
5. Take a holistic approach. Integrate your marketing, advertising, customer service and product development teams.
6. Think inside out. Your employees are the vanguard of your branding efforts. Enlist their support.
7. Follow through. Don’t falter. You can’t afford to lose ground!

The bottom line? Using PR to preserve and protect your brand can mean growth for your bottom line … even in the most challenging of economic times.

How Do You Count Your Cash?

Now, more than ever, we need to “think global and act local.” Despite the fact that the internet has made the world a smaller place, it hasn’t eradicated many of the more subtle cultural differences that separate us. For just one example, check out “How People Count Cash,” a nifty little video that shows how people all around the world have their own, unique ways of counting currency.

These subtle cultural differences can be critical if you’re doing business in an unfamiliar market. It’s one of the reasons why our firm has long cultivated a network of partner agencies, regionally, nationally and worldwide: IPREX , one of the world’s largest global public relations networks, and the Northeast Partnership, which consists of seven PR firms in New England (Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, Maine), New York and New Jersey.

It’s part of our commitment to “The Power of Specialized Thinking.” Not only have we organized our practice areas — health care + pharmaceutical, technology + business services, financial + professional services, investor relations, branding + visual communications and online fluency — to reflect our belief that depth of expertise always yields the best outcomes, but also because we’re convinced that geographic and cultural specialization are more productive and often more cost efficient for our clients.