Cult in the Washington Post
The makers of Tylenol recalled millions of bottles right away, airing alerts warning people not to take the capsules and setting up a hotline, said Doug McIntyre, chief executive of Cult Marketing. Read More »
The Rise of Cult Branding
A Duesenberg was just like any other luxury car … correct? And if you like Anchor Steam Ale, well, you’d be just as happy to pop open a Bud Light, yes? And a Mac user might switch to a PC on a whim, is that not so? … Guess again! Obviously, the answer in all three cases is a resounding “no!” But what is it about some products or people that gives them a “cult following?” And what can companies learn from this cult branding phenomenon when it comes to marketing their products?
Not just any product attracts a cult following. It isn’t enough to be of high quality, or even to be very distinctive. The cult product does more than provide a service. For one thing, it promotes an image. Your use of a cult product tells people something about you. Therefore, cult brands tend to be higher involvement or more personal products, not everyday consumer items.
It also makes you feel a part of a select group – a member of a tribe that believes passionately in something. In some cases, these kindred souls even band together as though they were members of an exclusive club, with their own rituals, jargon, and dress. Think the Marines or Harley Davidson bikers.
In short, what sets cult products apart is that they lend the customer an identity and a strong sense of belonging. It is human nature to want to belong, and people like to associate with people who have similar interests. Therefore, the cult brands act as the bonding agent that draws people together.
What does this mean for corporate America? There are some decisive advantages for the brand that has a cult following. There’s the obvious benefit of a fanatically loyal customer base, but it doesn’t stop there. Consumers that are part of a cult following are not nearly as price-sensitive as other types of customers. Since the brand has no real competition, price wars are out of the question — customers will pay full price for their brand without hesitation and are often the “early adopters.” Furthermore, they will provide free word-of-mouth advertising for the producer by encouraging others to “join the club.” This is the type of customer that companies dream about.
According to Doug McIntyre, President of the Columbus, Ohio brand marketing firm Cult Marketing, most marketing dollars in America are used to replace the 20–25% customer attrition that most brands suffer every year. Fickle, disloyal customers wind up costing as much in marketing expenses as they contribute to profits — a net-zero gain for the company. In a recent study, only 18% of national advertisers believed they were receiving a positive return-on-investment on their TV advertising dollars! By contrast, cult consumers will stick with their brand, year after year. That is why McIntyre advocates flipping the traditional marketing model in what he calls “Reverse Branding” – brand marketing from the inside out.
With so much to gain, why aren’t all companies striving to develop cult followings? In some cases, companies have not fully realized the rewards of such an approach. Or, unlike cult brands, they try to be all things to all people – they are unwilling, or perhaps afraid, to stake out a niche. “Cults always have a very specific and defined point of view,” points out McIntyre, “and if you don’t agree with it, that’s OK with them.”
In other cases, companies want to develop cult brands, but can’t figure out how. It’s just not that easy to develop a product that people fall in love with. Effective cult branding is more than just generating hype – the product itself, and the image it projects, must have a special appeal that draws people in. Likewise, the cult following must be genuine and thrive at a grass-roots level. In fact, the more a product appears to be the slick output of a corporate brand marketing machine, the less likely that a cult will develop.
So, for a business, both the advantages and challenges of cult status are great. Some believe that cult products can be developed effectively, but not by traditional marketing methods or a business-as-usual approach. “What you need to do is start with what we call a ‘deep dive,’” says McIntyre. “You need to understand the total experience from the customer’s perspective. What’s the emotional impact? How does it fit in with their lives? We use ethnography and other research techniques for this. Then it’s a matter of looking at the complete package – the product, the retail experience, the website, the advertising, the way representatives look and act – everything that enhances or detracts from creating a cult experience.”
After developing a deep understanding of a company’s cult customers, the next step is to develop ideas based on the marketing techniques employed by cults and cult brands. Continues McIntyre, “We have identified 13 Laws of Cult Branding. These are the characteristics of cults and cult brands, and how they market themselves. We use these 13 Laws as our toolbox for ideas. It’s amazing how many powerful ideas you can generate from these 13 points.”
Trade Show Success Strategies for Brand Marketing Doug McIntyre, Cult Marketing
A trade show is like a modern day bazaar – a veritable open market of hawkers and vendors urging you to buy. In this chaotic environment, how do you succeed? How can you promote and market your brand without getting lost in the crowd? How do you land the hot leads, get the order, or at least have a real conversation about your service or product?
At Cult Marketing, we believe in the Sun Tzu philosophy that “the war is won before the first battle begins.” In the case of a trade show, it is certainly the truth; your brand marketing strategy going in must be airtight. You must carefully define your target audience, determine how you engage with them, how you make them aware and interested in your offerings, and how to motivate them to seek you in this environment. This is all possible only through careful ethnographic research, strategic planning, bold creativity and maybe a bit of show business.
Careful Ethnographic Research: What do you know about your target audience? In Sun Tzu terms this is known as “intelligence.” First of all, who is attending this trade show – potential customers/clients, competitors? What are they interested in? What are the characteristics of the attendees? The first thing you need to do is make sure the trade show is right for you as a presenter by assessing all these variables and comparing them to your objectives, product/service offerings and sales strategies.
Strategic Planning: If you’ve decided there is a good match between what you do and what attendees are looking for, then what is your plan to move attendees down the AIDA continuum (Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action)? How will you get their attention, what will tweak their interest, can you actually get them to move to action? In this case, the call to action will be defined here as conversation, a lead, a proposal, or in a perfect world, an order. You also want to be sure that your current brand marketing strategy is prepared to handle these conversions (have a trade show related landing page created on your website, for instance).
One thing you need to do is start the awareness process weeks or months before the show begins. Your target customers should be seeking you out by the time they get to the show because you have intrigued them well in advance. So, remember to invest in a solid pre-show campaign. Don’t skimp here and spend all your money on a crazy booth stunt.
Bold Creativity: There is nothing quite as dramatic as the instant feedback you get at a tradeshow. If people flock by your booth on their way to your big competitor, you can only sit there and pretend to look busy. In the meantime, it is too late. If your creative efforts are not the result of a well thought out extension of your strategy, they will fail. They will also fail if your message is presented in a boring, uninteresting or expected way. Remember the first rule of creativity: you must get their attention. If you don’t get their attention, everything else you did is completely wasted.
Show Business: This one is tricky as many companies feel a bit embarrassed about going over the top. But, it’s OK to push the envelope as long as it is well done. I remember a Kohler booth that had the “Bond Girls” coming up out of a pool of water. Yes, it was expensive as hell, but it was fabulous and the booth was overrun with prospects. The rule here is if you can’t afford to do it right, then don’t make the attempt.
Last but Not Least: You need to close the deal after the show. You need the order, the PO or even better, a large check mailed to your doorstep. This is where having a pre-show strategy incorporated into your brand marketing efforts pays off. Have a custom sales follow-up for each and every prospect. You should know more about them after the show than you did before, so capitalize on that information.
Trade show marketing can be fun if you are prepared for the battle. Find a good strategic and creative partner and carefully chart out every step of the process. Leave no detail to chance. Now, please enjoy the show!
Energy Companies and Brand Marketing – Like Oil and Water?
An oil spill is a tragic – but all too real – possibility for an oil company. By the nature of their business, you would think oil companies would expect an incident like the Gulf of Mexico offshore oil well explosion to happen. It should not be a surprise – anymore than an earthquake in California would be a shocker. But, as the latest oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has shown, these environmental disasters are all but impossible to prepare for. The question from a brand marketing standpoint is simple: what the hell should they do given this probability?
As we at Cult like to do, let’s back up and look at the consumers’ view of the industry. The oil companies are really big and really profitable – even when the economy is in the proverbial toilet. In the deep recession year of 2009, when almost everyone was suffering financially, the oil companies made billions of dollars in profits. In a 2006 study of gas price manipulation, the FTC found that the record increases in gasoline prices were “not substantially attributable to higher costs”. It seems the oil companies always take advantage of their financial opportunities with no regard to consumer goodwill. These companies are often viewed as monopolistic, money-grubbing, price-gouging, predatory goliaths. In a 2008 Harris poll of 20 major industries, only the tobacco industry had a lower rating than the oil companies on the topic of how good or bad a job they perform in serving the needs of consumers.
From a marketing and branding perspective, what is there to love about an oil company? Do you trust them? Do you have any affinity to any oil company? Do they do anything for you as a person? Do they make you feel good in any way? The energy industry has to rank among the worst PR and branding industries. We know all about the 1989 Exxon Valdez nightmare which was widely considered the worst corporate PR fiasco of all time. But what has the industry done to counter its image since then?
Gladly, they have made some strides. Let’s take the current Gulf oil spill. BP has a real disaster on its hands, and they have clearly learned a lesson from Exxon’s PR gaffe. The CEO of Exxon was not seen until six days after the Valdez disaster, and then said at a press conference that it was not his responsibility to read the cleanup plan report. He also blamed the media for turning the spill into a big deal. Hell, it was two full weeks before he visited the spill site in Alaska! The media interview refusals by Exxon’s CEO Rawl and his complete lack of remorse highlighted the worst possible PR moves by one of the world’s most profitable corporations. It conveyed an ivory-tower arrogance. Now, to his credit, the CEO of BP, Tony Hayward, has learned from Exxon’s PR mistakes and has been on air and is taking full financial responsibility for the spill cleanup.
On the marketing and branding front, oil companies have increased their efforts. Shell has been focusing on advanced technologies and product performance enhancements along with sponsorships like Eco-Marathons, Exxon Mobil has been supporting science education, and BP and others have been focusing on their “green” strategy. Unfortunately for BP, that positioning is tough to sustain given the latest environmental tragedy.
Even so, let’s not pretend the problem has gone away. The brand marketing work of oil companies is far from done. Oil and energy companies must develop a sincere, long-term strategy to create brands that connect with their consumers on an intellectual and emotional level. In short, they need to define a plan to evoke positive feelings from their consumers.
One good way to enhance their brands would be to become good corporate citizens. Oil companies make massive profits, so how about giving back? An exhaustive study by the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy shows that the energy industry’s Total Median Giving as a Percent of Revenue (0.05%) is the lowest of any other major industry! [For reference, health care companies give 0.6%, or 12 times as much as the energy companies.] Once again, the oil companies don’t understand the concept of branding.
Maybe the sad reality is there is no motivation for oil companies to care about their brands or their consumers. What are we to do, stop buying gasoline?
Private Label Optimization — Or, Life as a Red-Headed Step Child
Did you know that private labels products now account for up to 45% of all retail sales in key European countries, and 21.5% in the U.S. (Nielsen, 2009)? If you looked at these statistics ten-twenty years ago, it would be a different story. But recently, private label products have become increasingly popular with consumers. Yet, you don’t see these products spending millions of dollars on television and print advertising. Still, in most cases, private label products deliver significantly higher margins to the retailer than the traditional consumer produced goods (CPG) brands.
So, it is surprising that private label strategies are not pursued with the same level of vigor or investment as their branded brethren. Is it because they are completely sold that the only way to spend their marketing budgets is on traditional advertising?
Cult has been working with a large national retailer to optimize their private label product strategy and package design. We employ the same rigorous branding development practices used by the big CPG brands. We conduct deep dives into the lives of the consumers to see how the brand fits into their lives. We employ unique market research techniques to determine what about a private label product speaks to a consumer and pushes them to make the purchase.
Cult Marketing develops concept testing programs to evaluate various design and messaging options, and we have consumers evaluate the competitive products, both CPG and private label. After all, when it’s all said and done, the consumer needs to choose the private label product even when it is displayed right next to the familiar brand icon.
The result is a highly competitive product that can win at the shelf, without a massive marketing campaign. We call this kind of win “the moment of truth” – and if done properly – it can pull the rug out from beneath a billion dollar brand.
