Branding and Marketing a Book

This post is going to be a work in progress.  I'm finishing writing my first book and I am very excited about it.  But now that I have a book, my product if you will, how do I get people to read it?  Well let me tell you.  The first thing I did before I started writing my book was look at my target market.  Who would buy my book?  Does this target market actually buy books regarding this?  How big is this target market?  I even went as far as to consider hot topics right now.  My book is social commentary which is an incredibly hot topic right now.  I figured that if you put up something that was entertaining, controversial then it would possibly sell. 

Writing is a huge undertaking.  I managed to hit the 50K word level which is probably just about where I want to be.  A good read but a quick one.  Knowing what I have in terms of a product and who I want to sell to I next started considering the opportunities to gain publicity.  Talking heads can be annoying but they are also the biggest proponents of my type of book.  I also am going to contact local radio stations to set up inteviews about my book and my opinions.

I need to establish credibility so I'm going to book speaking engagements and also see if I can submit a couple of articles to news papers.  The end goal?  It's to pick up some credibility, spread my thoughts and honestly, just see how far a guy can get with a product!  It's almost an experiment of sorts.  I want to produce a commercial for it and see if it goes viral on Youtube.  I'm going to have a website for it also.  I really just want to see how big I can grow it.  I believe in my book and my thoughts.  I think that I have reasonable credibility and would love to write more.  I'm not doing it as a Morgan Spurlock type thing, it is a real book with real opinions, but combine that with my marketing ability it'll be interesting to see what I get.

As for the release date... TBD, the name... I have one but I want to make sure that it is what I want it to be.  I'll keep you updated.

Travel Brands

I recently returned from a trip to Panama and while there I couldn't help but notice the different brands of the different travelers.  First of all you have to understand that Central America is a haven for travelers.  It's a conglomorate of Europeans travelling for 1-2 months, Australian college students looking to get a way for 6 months, rich latins who spend time in another country flaunting their cash, business men doing deals in developing countries and the dread locked nomadic "dude I just love the laid back lifestyle" hippies who hang out for months at a time and who knows how long they end up staying there.  Oh and did I mention the crazy Americans who have given up on the country and are drawn to the cheap real estate and semi-Americanized culture (in Costa Rica and Panama at least).  Then there are the typical Americans who only have a few days off of work because we all work so hard.  We spent 9 days in country and everyone thought we were crazy, I thought it was a good amount of time until we heard the stories of people hanging around and traveling all throughout Latin America.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand.  The adventurers and Typical American travelers are the ones who pack for the trip.  They wear the clothing that is best suited for travel and the conditions they will encounter.  If you look at the different brands that are available that tout themselves as "Travel Brands" you can easily recognize many of them and many you didn't even know existed.  Ex-Oficio is a travel brand.  They want to be known as a travel brand plain and simple.  Their clothing is for those who want to have good looking apparel that is somewhat performance based but the branding is all about the Jet Setter.  Many companies have "Travel" as a category now.  For example Patagonia has a Travel section see here.  Another well known company that is making headway into the apparel realm is Merrell.  They like Patagonia, have a Travel section.

Of all the brands that I saw in all of Panama ironically old faithful Columbia was the most visible brand.  I saw many travelers, businessmen, adventure seekers, and fishermen wearing the Columbia Omni-Dry shirts.  Multiple times I saw the hats and shoes.  Somehow Columbia has resonated with the traveling types.  I have a couple of theories on this.  First, the price point.  Columbia is affordable and many deft travelers are used to traveling on budgets and want to get the best bang for their buck.  Second, Columbia has penetrated the Latin market better than many of the aforementioned brands.  I saw many Latins wearing Columbia which leads me to believe that a concerted marketing effort has been made world wide.  And it has paid off.  I saw fishermen from Europe with Columbia on, backpackers from Argentina, Americans that were laying on a beach all wearing the brand.  What does this mean?  Well, I'm not sure if Columbia intended to become a traveler brand but it certainly is a big area that could/should be and is being exploited see here. 

I remember it being that cute brand from Portland that had the old lady testing coats.  They made great coats and outer wear but now Columbia has grown into a formidable affordable outdoor/travel giant.  I guess I can't say that I was completely shocked to see everyone wearing Columbia clothing as I brought my fair share of Columbia gear, I guess I was just shocked to see so many people wearing it in the airports and on the buses.  Everyone scattering around to participate in their various activities while wearing quality performance apparel.

Sponsorships and branding

I recently went to an auto race in Utah and I was intrigued by all of the sponsorships.  On every car... well almost every car there were a grundle of sponsorships.  The teams themselves are supposedly extensions of bigger brands/owners.  There is the Michael Jordan Racing team, complete with the Jumpman logo and everything.  The National Guard is a sponsor for that team along with Gatorade, Upperdeck and Hanes.  All those brands have jumped on board all to be part of the man MJ.

Sponsoring is rough way to go when you think about it.  It fairly ineffective way to spend marketing dollars and you really never know what you're going to get as far as returns.  Even worse than that you really can't measure any of it.  Every once in a while you hit a homerun when you line your brand up with a relevant event or product.  I look at some of the classics that have been successful and they make sense.

Gatorade - Has done a great job with associating itself with sports and leagues.  NBA, NBA, High School Athletics.  This is great sponsorship dollars.

Coke - Pumping billions into the Olympics is incredible but there is a reason why it is the global drink of choice.  (Even though they have a different formula in Mexico... they use real sugar and it's better!)

Nike - College football teams.  If your team wears Nike apparel you know you have a good thing going.  This extends beyond just the unis, the apparel is going to be quality also.

Under Armour - The NFL Combine.  It is the perfect showcase for UA.  The training and the venue is right on.

Mountain Dew - The Dew Tour.  Young, adrenaline kids showing off with loud music and disregard for society... well done.

Social commentator/film maker Morgan Spurlock the man who brought us Super Size me has a new movie "The Greatest Movie Ever Sold" coming out in which he had sponsors pay for all of it by using ad placement.  He even got Pom the Pomegranate drink to purchase the naming rights to the movie.  It looks fascinating and kind of puts things in perspective.  How effective placement and sponsorships can be depends completely on the product and the associated brand.  The Sprint Cup doesn't seem like a great marriage nor does Energy Solutions Arena but spending money and sponsoring can certainly get your name out there. 

The Battle For the Most Interesting Man in the World Title

Make no mistake, there is a battle going on.  It's fierce, it's bloody, and it's foreign.  Sound like something out of Central Asia?  Well, you'd be mistaken, the battle is in the booze.  Beer as a matter of fact.  With the incredibly overwhelming success of the Most Interesting Man in the World campaign by Dos Equis created by Euro RSCG of New York, Heineken decided it needed to ride this wave too.  What makes this type of campaign so appealing that the Dutch brewers want to jump on board?  Lets take a look:

Historically beer drinking wasn't associated with class.  Many of the drinkers  had a rough edge to them and saw it as a recreation drink or relaxation drink.  Picture a beer at a baseball game, or tailgating at a football game, or best of all, "bartender give me a beer".  With this type of audience already firmly entrenched as a drinking base it was time to reach out to other drinkers.  A subtle message that is permeated throughout the campaigns is that everyone can drink a beer.  These campaigns can be as educational as they can catchy.  With this in mind it's interesting to see how similar yet different these two campaigns are.  The end goal is to have one of the catchier campaigns, reach a new audience and get people to buy your beer because of the campaign you put together.

Dos Equis:

I love this guy, he's my hero, he's who I want to be in 30 years.  Problem is that it's in 30 years.  What about in the meantime?  Well, Dos Equis has done a great job of inserting clips from "his life" throughout all of the the ads.  The ideas for their creativity has been astounding.  Essentially clips of a man throughout his life showing all of the amazing things he has done, stuff that you and I could only dream about.  His life reads like a story book or a novel.  He has rubbed shoulders with dignitaries, explored in places that are so remote not many people have been there.  Accomplished tasks that still show up in record books.  All while wooing women and smiling.  He's exotic with a beard.  His accent can't even be placed, is he Spanish?  Dunno, German?  Dunno... his origin is as interesting as he is.

As part of the overall message, Dos Equis has really appealed to the young professionals, shooting for the 25-40 year old range who still think they can be that guy.  It's a fun campaign that has changed the way we look at Dos Equis.  Having an exotic foreign name to it has helped too.  Having gone from almost complete obscurity to on of the most talked about beers out there, congratulations, it worked.  It worked so well that I now can't wait for the next Most Interesting Man in the World commercial.

Heineken:

A little known fact is that Heineken owns Dos Equis.  So the big question is why would they compete with themselves?  The answer isn't so easy to explain.  There are two sides to this.  In case you haven't seen the ads, there is a young man whose nationality can't be placed (the spot was shot in Spain with a French actor) but totes a thin beard and is dark haired.  He enters a room and immediatly greets all sorts of people.  These people range from Indian women to foreign dignitaries.  There is even a scene with a Martial Arts expert.  Essentially the man is good at everything and has done everything in order to meet and greet these people.  Everyone loves him and he too is one of the Most Interesting Men in the World.

To answer the question of why compete?  The overall success of the Dos Equis campaign had to be so overwhelming that the big whigs thought it would be Okay to introduce a little competition. Rivaling The Most Interesting Man in the World (TMIMW) is a very hard thing to accomplish.  He is distinguished and has a take on life that we would all love to have.  So to introduce a spunky young man into the mix and try to take some of that real estate was a tough task to ask.  Heineken did a really good job through the agency Weiden + Kennedy of Amsterdam in making this young buck "interesting".  The campaign is older than you would think. It started in 2010 and has been a viral hit for a while but starting in March 2011 went mainstream.

The music, the feats, the person, all scream a younger peppier version of TMIMW but will it last and will it win?  Heineken sure hopes so because of this being their flagship brand and precedence for the rest of the company.  They are confident that this globtrotting youngster will inspire people in their exploration of the world and their Beer. “Heineken wants to elevate our drinkers by showing aspirational behavior — our consumer knows how to navigate the world, is confident, open-minded and resourceful,” spokeswoman Tara Carraro told Ad Age.

  Regardless Heineken is sure looking to brand itself very similarly to Dos Equis.  The difference being a peppy and young look trying to inspire young people to behave a certain way.  Heineken will never touch what Dos Equis as done and I think it's safe to that The Most Interesting Man in the World is still in a league of his own.  He was a first mover and carries a mystique to him that can't be matched. Our young Heineken friend looks like one of his disciples but as was with Peter or Paul, there is no replacing the Master.

UPDATE: The latest commercials.

The hype leading up to the launch, hitting your target.

One of my current clients has been working on raising some hype for one of their products.  It made me think of the hype that companies raise in order to grow awareness.  One recent campaign that is a few  years old is the Android campaign where pre-launch commercials were produced and run non-stop through every major event.  I remember watching them through the Superbowl and every other major event.  When the phone was finally released the brand had been established and the consumers knew everything about it.  It seems to have lived up to exactly 89.3% of the hype.  It was positioned to rival the iphone and is sorta kind of doing that.

In the outdoor and sports world this type of things is a little more difficult to do.  Consider this: if The North Face wanted to launch a new type of coat that would be the end all be all for any type of activity (never gonna happen but I'm just saying).  How would TNF position this?  First of all you would have to consider the fact that not everyone is going to purchase your product.  Your target market is very defined.  Someone in Arizona or Florida is not going to need your product.  With a phone, everyone buys a phone and wants a phone.  This is not the same with outdoor products.  TNF would launch a huge campaign to hit their demographics but the ROI on that investment wouldn't be very good.  Conversely if TNF targeted their campaign to the traditional outdoors outlets they would probably sell the exact same amount of product.  It's like I've said before, those who are going to buy it are going to buy it.

This leads again to the question of how do you hype a product before you launch it if your results are going to be the same without the additional costs of the campaign?  The answer is long and murky but here is the brief version of it all.

Currently the mentality of the "next big thing" doesn't really exist in the outdoors community.  It doesn't make sense to do it.  The results will be the same without the spend.  Gun manufacturers have attempted this but it requires someone following the industry intently.  The best way to hype an upcoming product or brand is to piggy back on what is currently being done by the company.  There are plenty of really good campaigns out there but instead of completely focusing all the efforts on the next product only about 20 - 30% of the focus should be used on the next product.  While a complete campaign will need to be run for the product it's much safer to utilize the space of a current product that is doing really well.  One example of this is in the outdoor clothing space.  Take my old favorite Under Armour.  What Under Armour has done is utilized what they have done in the past, leveraged their brand and put together small campaigns announcing or advertising upcoming products.  A great example is ski and snowboarding clothing.  There was never a big campaign or even a lot of money spent, rather by inserting it as an option or "see our winter line" on their website they were able to spark interests and create the next "big" for them.

It's a tough industry to revolutionize.  That's why building large amounts of hype just doesn't work.  You have to parlay your current hype of one product into the next thing that is coming along.  Unless the overall product is really something that is show stopping it's not going to be worth the costs of creating the hype.  The outdoors market is finicky and has to be treated as such.  Make sure your campaign is concerted and hitting the right target.  One proven way is to utilize other products that already have awareness.

The world loses a true outdoorsman and an amazing person: Garrett Smith

The world becomes a lesser of a place when a good person is taken from us on this earth.  I knew Garrett Smith from interactions at church and inviting him and his wife over for a gathering of friends.  It's odd when you can just sense that someone his great.  There is greatness about them.  Despite Garrett's great size at 6'7" I could still feel that he was a great man.  We chatted about life, the outdoors, and what we wanted to do with ourselves.  He always wore a scarf.  Garrett was truly man enough to wear a scarf.  We talked about the purpose they served and how in the desert they are essential to keep all the sand and sun out.  I thought he was just talking but later when I learned about his life and what he had done and seen our conversation made more sense. 

Garrett was a world traveler, a photographer, a mountaineer, a climber, a skier, a husband, a brother, a son, an uncle, and a friend.  Garrett traveled to Morocco, Israel, Africa, Europe, lived in Spain, spent a lot of time in Central America, skied backcountries and saw many other parts of the world that most people can't even imagine.  Garrett ultimately lost his life doing what he loved, he was backcountry skiing in Central Utah around 11,000 feet on Saturday March 26th and passed away on the 27th.

I can honestly say he affected me however little I knew him. He had the ability to affect people with minimal interaction, he did it with a big smile and quiet confidence.  When the world loses someone good we all are affected.  I was deeply touched by him and by his wife.  They were and she still is, avid outdoorsmen and amazing people.  I admire him for what he accomplished in life.  He has an amazing gallery of photos on his website www.hammersincphoto.com.  We had reached an agreement to refer people to each other to do work with the outdoors clients. Garrett worked for Petzl the maker of quality headlamps.  He saw the world differently.  He was a falconer and had a pet hawk that he trained when he was a teenager.  He ran the Wasatch 100 without much training.  He did things we only dream about.  He was quiet and sarcastic.  He was stoic and strong.  I want to remember him and think of how what he did and his outlook on life.  Ever the optimist, he valued each day and lived it to the fullest.  This life was about the journey for him.  We all need to be a little more like Garrett.

Here is the story told by the news in Utah.

What Jimmer Fredette means for marketing.

As Jimmermania swept the country this basketball season an interesting thing happened, Jimmer became a brand.  Jimmer had an amazing senior season at BYU leading his team to the Sweet 16.  Jimmer led the nation in scoring averaging 28.9 points per game and became the poster boy for jim rats everywhere (pun intended).  As Jimmer looks towards the NBA I'll take a look at what Jimmer means for marketing possibilities.

Jimmer has interesting marketing possibilities.  His game is range, he'll pull up from 30-35 feet away and drain it.  He has the capability to do that.  How well his game translates to the NBA is yet to be determined but I will say this, if you can put the ball in the hole you can play.  Because of that interesting dynamic and who Jimmer is he has the ability to instantly come onto a team and be the face of the team... in a way.

First of all Jimmer is white.  He's not incredibly athletic, athletic, but not incredibly.  He's a good looking guy with a great personality.  He says the right things, practices the right things (He's Mormon), hits trick shots and dribbles like Curly from the Globe Trotters.  It's very marketable.  In a time when the NBA is loaded with tatted thugs breaths of fresh air are craved (see Blake Griffin with T-Mobile and Subway).  Jimmer can instantly come into a situation and be the smiling face that some team wants to use to appeal to the large majority of their fan base; middle class white suburbia.

Jimmer has brandability.  He has the name, he has the shot, and he has the looks, what he doesn't have is a guarantee of success in the NBA.  Undeservedly he has been compared to JJ Redick and Adam Morrison.  Basically it's because he's white, had a great college career based on his skills not his athletic ability.  Just my quick thought on that then back to marketing.  He can create his own shot and he can finish in the paint, neither of those two could do that.  That may be just enough to get him into the league and make him an attraction.  At the end of the day it's about watching some of the greatest athletes in the world do amazing things.  The way he shoots is amazing.  Him being who he is may not be amazing, but it may sell.  I can see moms buying Fredette jerseys for their kids and feeling okay about it.  I can see some team putting his face on their program and not worry about someone fathering 9 kids with 8 different women (see Antonio Cromartie of the NY Jets).  I can see it.  I can see Jimmer doing interviews and laughing with the media.  I can see him saying all the right things and doing guest clinics in the local community.  I can see it.

What I can't see is Jimmer doing it for the NY Knicks.  The market is just not right.  Too glitzy and glamorous (although DT Justin Tuck did text Jimmer during the NCAA Tournament and he's from the state of  New York).  I don't think he does it with the Heat either.  He needs his shots and they already have too many people taking shots now.  I don't see it in L.A., again, too much glamour and Angry Jack sitting on the sideline wouldn't like Jimmer if he jacked a 35 footer and missed it.  I do see Jimmer in Memphis, I see him fit really well there.  Southern folks can appreciate a good old fashioned white guy.  I see him in San Antonio or even Dallas for that matter.  I actually see him fitting in the Spurs system and he has small market guy written all over him.  I can't see him in Portland, doesn't fit the team culture.  Honestly, he could fit in Minnesota, how fun would that be with two unathletic white ballers!?

Last but not least, I see him back in Utah.  He would sell tickets, he would have all of Provo, Utah up to see him and half of Salt Lake.  During a time when Utah his going to struggle for the next two years... even if the Jimmer show is only a side attraction to the bigger overall picture.  It might just be worth it for the Jazz to draft him and sell some tickets.  Jimmer is marketable, he has to be in the right situation and with the right team and he can make someone a lot of money.