My daughter Hana saw these in a store and texted me a photo, being impressed with Jelly Belly's marketing savvy.

They aren't available very often, but when they are...Jelly Belly fans love to snap up our famous Belly Flops. These special beans taste great, but don't quite meet all of our demanding standards for size, color, shape and flavor.    

 - From back of bag, as blogged by Sugar Pressure

 This is another example of the world's greatest marketing axiom (my favorite anyway): If You Can't Fix It, Feature It!

Four marketing lessons from Belly Flops:

1. Instead of trashing the misshapen jellybeans or hiding the irregularities, they feature the "mistake" and the fun it produces:

You may find one that's round, one that's square, or you may even find a bunch stuck together. On very rare occasions, a flavor may not match a color. A red Belly Flop might taste like Blueberry, or a white one might taste like Chocolate Pudding. Crazy!

2. The product name Belly Flops leverages the well-established Jelly Belly brand name, while simultaneously repurposing a kinda funny label that most people know refers to a not very serious, well, flop. Which is all strongly reinforced by the graphics on the bag.

3. They assure customers of the usual great Jelly Belly taste, and at the same time, reinforce that they have "demanding" aesthetic standards that this product doesn't meet.

4. They make us feel like we're getting a deal - half price, in fact.

Good marketing JB!

I just saw (again) the happy UPS song-ad targeting international business, which reminded me how much I admire their We Love Logistics campaign (Ogilvy). Check it out! (And don't blame me if the song gets stuck in your head!).

After almost a decade of What Can Brown Do For You (Martin Agency), last fall UPS launched their new campaign, which is squarely aligned with their global growth strategy. Here's how UPS explains it:

Everybody loves something. We love logistics. We love its precision, its epic scale, its ability to make life better for billions of people. Each day, our customers count on us to choreograph a ballet of infinite complexity played across skies, oceans and borders. And we do. What's not to love?

Here are six key branding and identity-building lessons from this highly successful and viral campaign:

1. Creating a new category: By branding logistics as "The New Logistics," UPS is creating a new and much broader category, one which compels us (as "new" often does!) to want to know more, and one which they aim to own!

2. Think/Feel/Do: They are changing what people think about logistics, then associating those thoughts with good feelings, and then connecting those good feelings with UPS. The classic hierarchy of effects.

3. Capturing emotion: There aren't many business topics that are more left-brain sounding - and potentially boring - than logistics. Yet, UPS takes a lighthearted, fun, and strategic approach to bring feeling and life to logistics. (Even my teenager said "I love that ad!" and starting singing the song. He even knew lots of the words!). UPS doesn't just do logistics, they love logistics. (In all your spare time, count all the hearts in their cross-platform communications).

4. Focus on benefits: It's not really about logistics, it's about the benefits their global logistics network enables for small and medium size businesses. Check out their time and money savings calculator here.

5. Brand identity: And it's not just a branding campaign. It's recrafting their identity - their organizational soul - by expanding from shipping to logistics (more here in this Supply Chain Digital article). They manage to memorably convey everything they do, which is - dare I say "logistically!" - pretty complex, in a 30 second ad.

6. Operations-communications-sales alignment: Over the last several years, UPS has acquired dozens of companies to create their worldwide logistics network. They focus more on supply chain execs and CAOs, rather than just on shipping managers (more here). And their campaign brings it all to life in a personally relevant and highly engaging way!

Well done UPS (again)!

I just had a fascinating conversation with a colleague who runs a Peace Institute at a southern California university. He posed this marketing challenge to us: Fix the stigma of peace. He feels their success is hampered by the stereotype that "peace people" are card-carrying liberals who naively think everyone should play nice, and who don't get the necessity of war to keep the world safe.

So, do we:  a) try to change how people think about peace? Do we:  b) reframe peace and call it something else that's less "loaded?"  Or do we:  c) accept people where they're at, and find a common ground regardless of political idealogy?  (hint: not a or b).

I call this "wrong reason marketing." Get people to do the behavior based on their own reasons (or even no substantive reason), without requiring them to know what you know or believe what you believe, aka the "right" reasons.  Be forewarned: The stronger you believe in something, the harder - and perhaps the more important- it is to do this. Remember though, small wins lead to bigger wins. More to follow...

I was the "branding guy" on a Social Media panel in San Diego yesterday. Most of the attendees were from biotech, pharma, and life sciences. I recommended these rules:

1. Just because you can, does not mean you should. Deploying social media has an upside and a downside for your brand. Do not make the mistake of automatically doing social media just because it is available and popular. It is a strategic choice that needs to be integrated into your overall business planning.

2. Assess the value of social media like you would any other marketing and communication tools. Separate out the "cool and trendy" factor and evaluate how each tool individually and collectively will impact your brand. Think of the variables that constitute blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Linked In, and other tools; things like speed, interactivity, reach, user control, etc. Each tool has its trade-offs.

3. If you do it, do it right. Maintaining an effective brand presence in social media requires a sustained commitment. You need to keep providing updated content of value, manage and moderate it, and track results. Otherwise, it will backfire as a broken promise.

4. In one word, social media is about engagement. Customer engagement with your brand leads to customer intimacy with your brand which leads to increased revenues (check out this Gallup study). Customer intimacy reflects a fundamental set of values and priorities that directly shapes how you do business and what constitutes success. Are you as committed as you want your customers to be?

We'll see you out there!

This weekend I saw a Goodwill truck with this big and bold slogan: "Getting people jobs." I was impressed.

As an international organization, their homepage states their mission clearly and succinctly - and in plain language: 

We help people who are looking for work or better jobs so they can better provide for their families.

Goodwill is a good example of a major non-profit that knows how to brand itself and tie its brand to its mission. Cone's Nonprofit Power Brand 100 study ranks Goodwill Industries International as #5 among leading nonprofit brands in America, with a brand value of over $2.5 billion. I think if Goodwill directly connects donating with jobs, their brand image and fundraising will be even stronger.

Food marketers have known this for years. One powerful way to appeal to customers is to emphasize what is missing.  Misleading? Sure can be. Depends on how you look at it. I see it as more honest than not, when it comes to health.

I remember when "cholesterol-free" was all the rage, seeing orange juice touting its no cholesterol advantage. Which of course it always had, given that only animal products contain cholesterol.

When avoiding an ingredient or preparation method or chemical becomes a hot topic, be prepared to see all kinds of food products using it to grab your attention. Like Ocean Mist Romaine Hearts, which is...lettuce. Their bag calls out that their lettuce is gluten free, lactose free, and vegan. And that it supports a healthy heart. All good things. Hey, what about fat free?

The National Pork Board (NPB) is aiming to increase sales by repositioning its domestic pork promotion campaign. “Pork. The Other White Meat has 90 percent recognition, but recognition does not equate to high demand,” CEO Chris Novak says in the online trade newsletter Pork.  “The current campaign compares pork to others (chicken); it doesn’t let it stand on its own.” A new ad campaign and approach will be announced next year.

Hmm, I always thought comparing to a well known product or brand and clearly contrasting what makes you different was a good way to carve out mindshare and market share. Positioning, by definition, always involves a comparison to identify the class of product and a distinction to stand out from others within the class. So...how might NPB reposition pork? Some ideas from NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me blog.

Pork: Secretly loved by Jews for 5,000 years.

I believe this British Petroleum ad ran in The Economist in 1999:

And they are. Tragically ironic, isn't it? Careful of what you promise. More than your brand is at stake.

Without reading the copy, what would you think this ad is selling? 

This is an image from the Breast Cancer Research Foundation's new PSA campaign. Here's their strategy:

We wanted to be honest and open. We wanted to create an image of a woman that a large number of women could identify with. And deliver a message that is as much about hope as it is about hard truths.

Cancer is ugly. Women are beautiful. We wanted the photograph to suggest all the strength, courage, vitality and radiance of a woman touched in some way by breast cancer. We wanted it to be timely and timeless.

Step 1 in communications is always getting attention. Using this kind of image does the job, and tastefully I think most donors would say. I admire BCRF's courage and clarity. Many health organizations prioritize being non-controversial and "safe" over being effective. What do you think about this ad?

The most powerful marketing axiom I know is "If you can't fix it, feature it!" (read more here). Here's a new example: 3floz.com. Knowing that a lot of travelers have problems with the "3 ounces or less" airport security rule, this new webshop features the problem, with 3 oz. containers of luxury beauty brands like Dr. Hauschka, Archipelago Botanicals and others (all of which I never heard of, which is of course not the point). Their value proposition: No more worries about TSA confiscating your fave beauty products. Interestingly, they broaden their target audiences to "those who travel, those who are curious, and those who can't commit." Next up they hope are airport kiosks for people to pick up their luxury beauty products on the go. It's a beautiful thing.