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Earlier this week, I heard the YMCA is changing its logo and its “everyday name” to “the Y,” because that’s how most people refer to the youth-focused non-profit. According to Mamie Moore, national spokeswoman for YMCA of the USA, “What we’re doing is calling ourselves ‘the Y’ because that’s what everybody calls us. But YMCA is still our legal name.”

YMCA, of course, is already short for Young Men’s Christian Association, and some media speculate the organization is trying to remove the “Christian” reference from its acronym. However, the Y contends that it put two years of research into the name change and new logo, and that they are really just trying to connect with a hip young audience that does not understand what the Y’s mission is. (I’m a little confused how shortening the name to ‘the Y’ helps explain that mission any better or differently than ‘YMCA’ did, and even more confused because both the old and new logo emphasized the letter Y and both have a proportionately smaller “YMCA” as part of the mark.)

The Y is not the first well-known entity to shorten its name to shed old perceptions or connect with new customers. In 1991, Kentucky Fried Chicken changed its name and simplified its logo to KFC. At that time, KFC management was trying to make itself a chain of the 1990s, introducing healthier menu items, enforcing stricter operating standards, and ultimately rebranding the company that Colonel Harlan Sanders first franchised in 1952. KFC not only resonated with customers who already referred to it by its initials, but also allowed the company to drop the emphasis on “fried.”

A few years later, Federal Express officially became FedEx, and not just because that’s what most people already called it; FedEx also spent several years researching the name change and creating the new logo. Key issues identified through research showed that Federal Express sounded too similar to a growing field of global competitors. Also, the word “Federal” – originally chosen to convey an official and reliable alternative to the U.S. Postal Service – had become associated with government bureaucracy in the minds of consumers. The new logo, which had to reinforce the company’s goal of being “big and bold but friendly and accessible” had an added bonus: While spelling out ‘Federal Express’ only allowed for 58-inch letters on the side of a delivery truck, the letters spelling FedEx now stand six feet tall on most trucks.

Each of these high-profile name changes were backed by months or years of research, hundreds of thousands of dollars in media and PR, and an overall broad awareness by consumers of what these companies already provided. But also this week, I read about a small local company – currently known as The Cupcakery – that is changing its name to The Cup later this month.

According to the news article, the multi-location cupcake bakery, started in 2007 in St. Louis, is changing its name to avoid confusion with other cupcakeries opening across the nation. (The news release didn’t specify, but I’m guessing they are referring to cupcake franchises such as Cupcake Station and Original Cupcake.) But I can’t help wondering if they are inviting a whole new source of confusion; to me, their new name says nothing of cupcakes and says everything about being a coffeehouse. (It also doesn’t help that The Cupcakery’s Flavor of the Week is Mocha Cappucino.)

The new logo does include a cupcake with some swirly icing, but the new illustration is not nearly as “cupcake-y” as the previous logo with the clearly-fluted brown baking cup below the generous green icing.

Even though I’m in St. Louis, I’m not familiar with The Cupcakery, so I don’t know if they conducted research to show that this name and logo change resonate with their target demographics. (I hope they did.) I also have no idea if they are really changing their name to avoid confusion with other companies, or if perhaps they are being forced to change it because they did not trademark it and someone else did. I hope I’m wrong about this, but from the outside looking in, it seems like a case of making a change that will avoid one problem yet create many others.

Changing a name, logo or packaging is one of the most exciting and stressful things a company can do. When is the right time to change a brand, and how do you know if the change is a good one? Consumer research can point you in the right direction, but you also have to look at what you’re changing and ask yourself: Am I making it better, or am I just making it different?

Business, Communications, Marketing

A certain St. Louis Post-Dispatch columnist has said that as a city, St. Louis possesses an inferiority complex that prevents us from aggressively pursuing – and winning – things that are coveted by other cities. Corporate headquarters. Cultural institutions. Sports teams. One other thing that St. Louis is notable for missing out on is venture capital funding, which is generally required to lure healthy and interesting start-up companies to any town (or enable them to stay there).

But at least one emerging St. Louis company is not only making a mark in the Midwest. They are getting national (and international) press for a proprietary technology that even Ozzy Osbourne is interested in.

Cofactor Genomics LLC, an 8-person, $2.5 million company based in St. Louis, is working with two other companies to create a genetic map of the eccentric and hard-living rocker, and then interpret the results to provide insight into Ozzy’s genetics and ancestry.

The results of the project, which began when Ozzy Osborne approached a company called Knome to provide the genetic interpretation and data analysis, will be featured in the Prince of Darkness’s new health column in The Times of London. Cofactor will begin the gene sequencing process within the next two months, and the Knome’s data analysis will take several more months to complete.

Osbourne approached Knome because of its recent work interpreting the genetic maps of a dozen high-profile celebrities for the PBS Series Faces of America. According to Cofactor’s President and Chief Technology Office, Dr. Jarret Glasscock, the genetic analysis may, in part, explain how Ozzy Osbourne has been able to survive a life of sex, drugs, rock & roll, and occasional encounters with bats.

For now, the attention on Cofactor should cause excitement not just for that company, but for all new companies hoping to find the one bit of notariety that propels their company from start-up to stability.

“As more celebrities get involved, (genome sequencing) will become more mainstream,” Glasscock said in the St. Louis Business Journal on June 28. “As prices continue to fall and the technology continue to progress — over last four years, we have made huge leaps and bounds — this will become very common.”

If genome sequencing does indeed become common, we can thank a rather uncommon rocker for helping one local company make its mark early.

Marketing

Pantene is doing away with the metallic banding on its caps to reduce costs and simplify its packaging.

Pantene is on a mission to save money by, among other things, simplifying its packaging and abandoning the gold foil on its closures that is the last visual reminder of the striking gold caps that once set the brand apart. But last week it spent money on an interesting advertising event that combined the appeal of reality TV with a great public relations opportunity.

It was a clever gimmick: Encourage women with great hair to compete for the title of Tabloid TV’s “Mane Girl” and become the “World’s First Reality Hair Star.” The grand prize was the opportunity to star in the company’s first live commercial, which was filmed in the same ambush style that Publishers House Sweepstakes Winners learn of their great fortune.

Pantene embarked on this unique campaign because they are promoting the newest generation of “customized solutions based on hair structure.” To support the reality TV theme – and emphasize the many different personal interpretations of what makes great hair – Pantene enlisted reality show  personalities Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi (MTV’s Jersey Shore), Lauren “Lo” Bosworth (The Hills), and Jill Zarin (Bravo’s The Real Housewives of New York City) and had each woman create You Tube videos giving their tongue-in-cheek explanation of why they should be Pantene’s Mane Girl.

None of the existing reality TV stars won the competition, of course. The honor went to Marissa Hopson, a Fort Lauderdale journalism student that Procter & Gamble says was “chosen based on her ability to be engaging and confident on camera, her personality, and of course – her beautiful hair.”

Pantene and P&G might wind up as the big winners, however, by connecting with a hip new audience through a medium they understand, and tempting us with the one thing every woman wants when she wakes up each morning: a really good hair day.

Marketing

I was recently involved in the launch of a new line of packaging for dry ingredients. The line was intended to compete with another company’s well-entrenched line that had no other direct competition. The reason we decided to bring out these knock-offs was because we saw a unique opportunity to capture up to 50% of the market, which was looking for any reason not to buy from the other manufacturer.

You see, the other manufacturer had, at one time, been an independent company who sold its packaging to distributors and direct customers alike. Then it became affiliated with the largest distributor in the industry. Once that happened, the second-largest distributor – and all the other distributors, for that matter – hated to line the coffers of their competitor, if even indirectly.

It seemed like the industry needed a second source for these bottles, and since we could make the full line with existing equipment, we jumped on the opportunity. We knew if we could capture sales from a good portion of the alienated distributors, this could be a profitable line.

But we never counted on selling this new line to the large distributor whose affiliate made the bottles we were knocking off. And yet, when orders rolled in, the very first one came from that distributor.

In sales circles, when someone is really good at connecting with the customers, we say, “She could sell ice to Eskimos.” In this case, I don’t doubt the salesperson did her job well. But there were also three other critical factors at work that helped us get this first order:

• We made exact knock-offs of the competitor’s style (which works only with custom caps), but also built another version with a neck thread that works with standard commercial closures.
• We’re selling them in relatively small quantities, making them accessible to more companies.
• We’ve priced them competitively, and our central manufacturing location provides shipping efficiencies to customers across the country.

What we might also learn over time is that the affiliation between the largest distributor and the other manufacturer is not actually as strong as the other distributors perceived it to be. If that’s the case, and if we can capture sales from a source we weren’t even counting on, then it may not be a case of selling ice to Eskimos, but rather a case of selling a relevant product into a competitive environment.

In any case, let’s hope these early orders and initial interest in this new product line are just the tip of the iceberg.

Marketing, Packaging

Among the various newsletters I receive by email each day, a link within one of them stood out to me yesterday, perhaps because of its provocative headline: 10 Reasons Your Team Hates You (They Just Won’t Say It To Your Face). It was a link to a September 2009 blog post at thoughtLEADERS, LLC, and I suppose it was included in the e-newsletter because it offers some opportunities for work-related New Years Resolutions for anyone who has to coexist on a work team.

Each of the 10 undesirable leadership qualities assumes it is the boss who has these negative behaviors. However, in today’s team environments, I would argue that any member of the team can bring down other members, especially on the type of team where each member is subject matter expert for his or her own area of specialization. For example, I am currently on a team responsible for launching about a dozen new products for the personal care industry. We have sales, marketing, engineering and operations all involved in equal (but distinct) roles, and any one of these people could potentially undermine the group’s success even though only one of us is the “boss” of the project.

Overall, I think this is an accurate and succinct list of qualities that can alienate employees and undermine the success of companies or departments. I have worked with people that have each of these character flaws, but thankfully I’ve never worked with any individual who had more than two or three of them. And usually, if one of the team leaders brought down his or her employees with any of these tactics, there was someone else within the organization who made up for it with the opposite behavior. (For example, does it really matter if your boss knows or cares a lot about your personal life so long as other people you work with make you feel like an important individual?)

I even recognize myself in several of the 10 Reasons, and I know other people I’ve worked would say the same thing. (I know this because past employers have told me I created stress among employees when I got too uptight about projects. My response to that criticism was to become defensive and proclaim that I was only stressed out because those other people might not have jobs if we didn’t win the project we were working on – and as team leader I felt it was my responsibility to escalate the urgency of the project. I now realize that’s not good management style after all, but at the time, I thought my stressed out manner was actually a positive attribute that everyone on my team should have shared.)

Another of the 10 Reasons that resonates with me is telling people to have a “balanced life,” and then setting a bad example. It used to drive me absolutely nuts when a previous boss would send me a rash of emails on Sunday afternoon inquiring when we were going to submit a proposal or get paid by a client. “Get a life!” I would think as I stewed over his emails while watching the second half of a football game, half-guilty that I wasn’t working on something productive. 

But now, in my dual roles as a business owner and a part-time employee of another company, I find myself working at odd hours and sending emails to people who may resent my intrusion on their personal time.

I have actually rationalized this behavior as important to my career, and as evidence that I’m a dedicated team player who is always accessible. But maybe that’s not how others see it, and maybe there’s a better way to demonstrate my commitment that doesn’t include making my co-workers feel like they need to reply to me at 10:00pm on a Tuesday. (And make my family feel like I’m working all the time.)

So for 2010, I’m going to make some resolutions to be a better business person and a better team player, even if some of my new behaviors are counter to how I’ve performed in the past. Most notably:

• I will differentiate between critical issues and non-critical issues, and only deal with the most critical issues outside of normal work hours. This will provide more of that elusive work-life balance to me and my family, and hopefully resolve any perceptions that I’m either too involved with work, guilty of brown-nosing, or have expectations that my clients and co-workers should work the same nutty hours I do.
• I will make a better effort to manage my work hours so I’m neither giving too much time, nor too little time, to the people I work for, so everyone gets a fair deal and gets what they need on time.
• And in addition to serving the companies I work for, I will spend more time investigating the technologies and social media platforms that will make me a better marketer and better blogger. And, ultimately, a better person to work with and work for.

Happy New Years!

Marketing

The packaging company I work for has recently developed a proprietary spray frosting technique for glass and plastic bottles which is much more environmentally-friendly than conventional spray frosts that contain volatile organic compounds (VOCs). The guys at our Technigraph decorating division named it Eco-Frost, which is a great name because it says exactly what it is: ecologically responsible + frosted effect.

We all liked it so much we decided to see if we could trademark it. The process wasn’t cheap, especially when it came on the tail end of substantial capital investments in technology that haven’t started generating revenue yet. The first step was a trademark search to make sure no existing competitors were already using the name. When that panned out, there was a second fee for actually trademarking the Eco-FrostTM name, which we did.

With a soft launch this past September – and a full-scale production launch scheduled for January – we can now rest assured that while people will try to copy the chemistry, at least they can’t commandeer our name.

Since trademarks have been top of mind for me this month, I was especially intrigued by headlines in the St. Louis Business Journal about a local company that was suing Microsoft for alleged trademark infringement. The company, Bing! Information Design, creates charts, maps and other illustrated graphics to visually communicate hard-to-grasp concepts. They say they have been using the Bing! name for nearly a decade, and their logo is a yellow light bulb with the lowercase word “bing” and an exclamation point in the font that makes me think “got milk?”

Identity crisis? Bing! Information Design's suit consistently uses Bing! with a capital B and an exclamation point, but the company's only logomark clearly shows a lowercase "b." How could Microsoft expect to know how a design company will use its mark if they don't even use it consistently?

Their suit alleges Microsoft’s Bing search engine is “causing confusion and diluting the value” of Bing! Information Design’s name. Their lawyer says they have a trademark application pending, and their 9-page suit says Bing! Information Design is the “owner” of the name, and has applied for the trademark in the State of Missouri.

The Federal trademark registry says the Missouri company’s application was submitted May 26, 2009. (Perhaps coincidentally, this was also the same day that PC World announced Microsoft had purchased the bing.com domain name from a series of defunct businesses.) The USPTO shows that Microsoft applied for its trademark on the Bing name on March 2, 2009 (nearly three months prior to Bing! Information Design’s application).

I’m all for the little guy holding fast against the mega-corporation. I believe no company, especially one that makes $58.4 billion a year, should be able to steal the rightfully-trademarked name of a small limited liability company and dilute the value of their business. I want every company in St. Louis to do well, and I would almost always side with the underdog. But, when the plaintiff in this case says Microsoft’s choice of the Bing name was “outrageous due to its evil motive and reckless interference,” and yet this same company did not even bother to register its own trademark until Microsoft had already negotiated ownership of the coveted bing.com URL, I find it hard to have empathy for them.

Bing! Information Design’s suit also claims Microsoft “had knowledge of the (Plaintiff’s) mark and Plaintiff’s expectancy in usage of the mark.” I’m not sure how they can substantiate this. Although the USPTO did question Microsoft’s ability to use the Bing name because of potential competitors who had already trademarked the name, the St. Louis company was not among those established (and registered) companies it listed.

I don’t know the legal ins and outs of trademark law, and I don’t know if filing for a trademark three months after someone else has already filed gives you protection to prevent Microsoft – or anyone else – from using your brand name on a global level. But my point is that if you have a good name and you want to protect it, you need to bite the bullet and spend the money to properly register it. Before someone else does.

As I head into January and embark on a strong push for Eco-FrostTM, I know I’m glad I don’t have to worry about competitors stealing our name, even if Microsoft decides to enter the spray frost industry.

Business, Marketing

They say the camera adds 10 pounds. But in the world of digital photography, it can also distort reality to make already-thin models look emaciated, and bring unwanted criticism to companies who have seemingly manipulated fashion photography to create unrealistic expectations of what the “ideal” woman should look like.

The Ralph Lauren ad featuring Filippa Hamilton may have been the first recent print ad in which a model’s proportions seemed excessively distorted, but this week, the French government has proposed legislation that would require all digitally-manipulated photographs of people to labeled as retouched.

Marissa Miller doesn't need Photoshop to look thin on the runway. Photo from thesuperficial.com.

My first thought is that there is very little value in labeling photos as retouched when probably 98% of them have been manipulated, and simply saying they’ve been doctored does not help us understand what the model really looked like prior to any Photoshop work. My second thought is that whether or not photos are being altered to actually make women’s waists and hips look smaller, there are still an awful lot of runway models who are a whole lot thinner than they used to be — and they look that thin whether they’re in a still photo or strutting down the runway with a bevvy of Victoria’s Secret Angels.

But mostly, I wonder why advertisers persistently believe that being ultra-thin is better than looking healthy. I don’t understand why elite brands like Ralph Lauren would intentionally manipulate a photo to make a woman look like her head weighs more than her torso.

And really, I don’t understand any brand that didn’t think Marissa Miller was already perfect carrying a few “extra” pounds.

Marketing

December 1 is here, and for bloggers, that means we now have to disclose if and when we are getting paid to blog about any product or service we’re mentioning online. I’m not personally concerned about this new FTC guideline, mostly because I believe in full disclosure in any form of media. And also, because I don’t make my living getting paid to promote products that I wouldn’t be happy to pay for in the first place.

But just out of curiosity, I looked at my small body of blog posts to see if perhaps – in the days before this was forbidden – I might have inadvertently given positive recommendations of anything I received for free.

Unfortunately, I realized I not only haven’t been paid to speak favorably about the products and services I’ve blogged about, but I have actually PAID FOR most of the experiences I’ve shared with you over the past year. A few examples:

• The Eight O’Clock Coffee package redesign I blogged about in February (and March!) was based solely on my love of packaging, and not on the premise of free coffee. I don’t recall if I started buying Eight O’Clock Coffee regularly around that time, but I know for sure I’ve been buying it recently (and enjoying it, by the way).
• Also in March, I plugged a local St. Louis company called Graphic Leftovers that has created a market for the graphical elements that talented designers create for finicky clients who never buy them. Graphic Leftovers has never paid me for that plug, nor do they likely read my blog and realize that I plug them. But I like their resourcefulness, and I’d use them again anytime I have the need for a quick graphic with no strings attached.
• In June, I talked about two family resorts we had stumbled upon through Internet research, and subsequently vacationed at in 2008 and 2009. I wish I could tell you I was savvy enough to call these resorts prior to our visits and negotiate a free week’s stay for myself and my family in return for some positive press coverage (which would be read by my five regular readers), but I was not that smart. Instead, we had two strings-free vacations (both of which we thoroughly enjoyed) that I paid retail price for.
• In the interest of full disclosure, I have also not received any free Obama Chia Heads from www.whatonearthcatalog.com – and I’ll admit I have not purchased any. I love this particular catalog, but the $24.95 price tag is a little steep for my gag gift budget.

Plus I haven’t made nearly enough on my blogging career to afford one.

Business, Communications, Marketing

As the holiday season approaches each year, I am always amazed at the number of catalogs we receive in the mail. Some days, I have few or no pieces of “real” mail awaiting me among the six or 10 catalogs crammed in the mailbox. Most of them are from retailers I’ve bought from before, but some are from companies I’ve never even heard of.

I feel compelled to browse every single one of them. And while I don’t make purchases from all or even most of the catalogs I receive, the chance that I will buy something because it was in a catalog is significantly higher than the chance I will go to a store and happen upon something I decide to buy.

Yesterday’s mail is a perfect example. We got six catalogs: Home Decorators; Pottery Barn; Cabela’s; Alloy; Signals (the Public Television catalog); and something called “What on Earth?” – which is full of gag gifts and novelty items. I suspect I get the Alloy catalog because last year I purchased a corduroy blazer from Delia’s, but for the most part, Alloy is not my style nor my age range (I know this because I look through the entire catalog each time I receive it). I probably get the Signals catalog because I donate to local public arts and sciences, and I get the Home Decorators, Pottery Barn and Cabela’s catalogs because we’ve purchased items from them online or at the local retail locations.

Whatonearthcatalog.com offers unique gifts for diverse people on my list.

I have no idea why I received the “What on Earth?” catalog, but I felt compelled to look through it not once, not twice, but three times. (Maybe it was the Obama Chia Head on the back cover that told me this might have some interesting gifts for the diverse group of people I buy Christmas gifts for.) Then I placed an online order for roughly $250, comprised of 10 different items ranging in price from $12.95 to $49.95. I was able to cross off four of the most hard-to-please people I shop for each holiday, and stockpile a few unique gifts for later in the year. All because I’m a sucker for the power of suggestion.

I’m also a sucker for all the credit-card-sized discount coupons I get from retailers with whom I have credit card accounts. Each week I get direct mail from Old Navy, Target, Ann Taylor, Bath & Body Works or Macy’s offering special deals when I redeem the nice, shiny coupons they send me. Usually, I have to use my store credit card to qualify for the discount, but sometimes stores like Lowe’s send me discount cards even though I don’t have a credit card with them. I have a special little wallet I’ve begun carrying with me to carry my ever-changing array of coupons. About twice a month I purge the ones that have expired and replace them with new ones I’ve accumulated. Each new deal seems better than the last, but still I find that most of these coupons are expired or are not valid for the particular items I tend to buy.

Yesterday, when I brought in the thick stack of catalogs, I remarked to my husband that we sure get a lot of useless catalogs around the holidays. He said he didn’t understand why retailers spend so much on a full catalog when they could just send a one-page flyer that directs you to their web site. But after looking through all six of them, and finding numerous specific things that are now on my “list,” I have to say the full catalogs probably do more to influence me than any other form of advertising I see – including online ads.

I don’t know if the discount cards or catalogs make me spend more than I would without them. (I like to think they do not.) But I must admit they probably influence exactly where I spend my holiday dollars – and cause me to consolidate my online purchases with a few key retailers instead of the random type of purchasing behavior I exhibit when shopping at local stores.

Marketing

Several months ago, the blogging world was shocked that the FTC was airing new guidelines that would require bloggers to disclose any paid endorsements or other in-kind benefits they have received in return for blogging about specific products or services. Now that the guidelines are published, they seem less ominous and, frankly, are no different than false advertising guidelines for other mainstream media.

Most true bloggers are not out to mislead the public about the quality of products they encounter. In fact, the traditional blogging community has prided itself on self-patrolling blogs and viral media sites to maintain the authenticity of this new medium. Remember three years ago when St. Louis-based Zipatoni launched a fake YouTube rap video that was supposed to be done by two young guys using their musical talents to convince their moms to buy them each a much-desired Sony PSP? When Sony and its ad agency were found to be the genius behind the video, there was a huge backlash against Sony for using viral marketing in a dishonest manner. (Oh, and Zipatoni lost the prominent account, too.) In the blogosphere, there have been many cases of bloggers losing their credibility as well when the things they gush about are obviously too good to be true.

Most bloggers would be appalled if their brethren began accepting the equivalent of bribes to start promoting products they didn’t really believe in. I think the FTC actions were originally interpreted by honest bloggers as criticism of bloggers’ integrity, and they were offended that the government had to step in and patrol the blogosphere, just as it patrols other media that have already sold out to sponsors.

But just like any popular media, blogging has become the target of numerous companies that way to harness the power of popular and powerful bloggers. I myself have worked with companies that have offered free merchandise or discounts to bloggers who agreed to try their products or services and give a positive review. (I’m not sure positive review was explicit, but it was certainly implicit.) The good news is that we can still tap into the important blogging community — but now the bloggers will be legally obligated to disclose if they were compensated in any way if they do receive something for their time and consideration.

But in the honest world of blogging, wouldn’t we do that anyway?

Business, Communications, Marketing