The responses to our Netflix versus Blockbuster challenge were interesting in two ways:

1) People have a visceral negative reaction to Blockbuster. Be it from its service, less than robust selection, or gay-unfriendly policies, there are issues with the brand. The question then becomes, can Netflix take advantage of this?

2) There were divergent views on the solution. Some people think Netflix needs to keep staying ahead of Blockbuster, with new features (like advanced searching) or pricing options (like sponsored content or additional postage costs for heavy users). On the other side of the branding divide, some thought a clearer focus and executing against that focus was the only way to survive. I bet survival will require both

-Lynn Parker

Conferences come in all stripes and I like the stripes at the Advanced Learning Institute’s Internal Branding conference, held last month in Chicago. This is what I liked:

- Being with other internal branding nerds who know that you have to live your brand before you can communicate it

- Seeing how companies as diverse as Pep Boys, Enterprise, Nationwide Insurance, Pitney Bowes and Boeing are getting their employees to deliver their brand promises

- Hearing how hard it is to get entry-level or low-level employees invested in living brands—and getting some good ideas for overcoming that difficulty

One thing I found fascinating: the similarity in concepts around how important it is to engage your employees emotionally. Check out these slides, all from different presentations.

If you’re interested in my presentation, check out the Internal Branding Conference materials here.

-Lynn Parker

I had the good fortune to be able to do some international traveling this summer, during which I noticed an interesting trend. Every time I walked into a grocery store I found I had no criteria with which to make product decisions because these brands were all new to me.

Take chips, for example. Were these thin chips, the kind of chips that could break a tooth or the super healthy chips that aren’t made out of potatoes at all? I had no idea what to expect. This meant that nine times out of ten, I purchased based on price, the look of the design, or whether I thought the package would endure a few days in my backpack. Because I didn’t know what the brands promised, I ended up seeing them as virtually identical.

This is a good lesson in what branding is all about. It’s a process designed to lift your product/company out of the land of price decisions and zero differentiation into one of clearly stated and delivered expectations so that customers know why they should buy it and why they should continue to buy it. In this case, $3 worth of chips isn’t a crucial decision, but what about my healthcare insurance, a business critical IT system or my financial consultant? The principles of branding work, regardless of the industry.

I wonder why I didn’t seem to have the same problem selecting among brands of wine?

Ciao,
Briana Marrah
Parker LePla

I used to pick Southwest Airlines, because the service and reputation were good. But when I fly out of Seattle next week I have no idea which airline I’m flying on. And actually I don’t even really care. I’m just happy to have found the perfect flight times for my trip. My coworker is flying the week after me and while she knows the airline she’s flying, she has no idea who they are or what to expect—but she does know they had the cheapest price. With surveys indicating that this summer flying was a uniformly miserable experience, who is standing out for their approach?

Air travel is becoming more and more commoditized. New airlines are taking the price game even further—for example, on Skybus, they offer a few $10 tickets on every flight, but if you make a connection you have to collect your baggage and re-check it in for the next leg of your flight, making sure your layover is at least 2 hours long to accomplish this. It would seem their business strategy is to become a commodity competing on price alone. (Does price create a lasting differentiator? Think: Wal-Mart.)

So starting with airlines, what are some other industries that have become commoditized? What do you think is an industry that has ceded its power to differentiate among its members?

- Krista Joy Johnson