Latest / The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson / Appreciated Branding with Reid Holmes

Transcript

Appreciated Branding with Reid Holmes · The SmallBizChat with Melinda Emerson

• 0:00
  3, 2, 1, 0, ignition.
• 0:07
  Lift off.
• 0:09
  Ending small business failure.
• 0:11
  Welcome to the small biz chat podcast.
• 0:14
  With the number one small business expert, Melinda Emerson.
• 0:18
  Melinda's goal is to end small business failure, and she'll give you the information
• 0:23
  you need to succeed and live the life you dream of.
• 0:26
  Now here's your host, the small biz chat lady self, Melinda Emerson.
• 0:34
  Have you subscribed to the small Bishat podcast?
• 0:37
  Well, it's time every Wednesday we offer listeners by size actionable tips to start and
• 0:43
  grow a successful small business.
• 0:45
  And just 20 minutes or so a week, you can get a ton of insight and resources to propel your
• 0:52
  business forward.
• 0:53
  Be sure to subscribe to the small beachhead podcast today.
• 0:58
  Alright.
• 0:59
  Now it's time for me to introduce my guest, Reed Holmes.
• 1:03
  He's a branding expert, a speaker, an author, and after 30 years in an ad agency as its chief
• 1:10
  marketing officer, Reed has had an epiphany and he's been interrupted.
• 1:15
  But he said he's tired of seeing brands just interrupt people and wasting billions, chasing
• 1:21
  transactions, leaving customers saturated by brand indifference and high price sensitivity.
• 1:29
  He believes that branding in the digital era is about proving you care, whether you're a b to c
• 1:35
  or b to b marketer, everything is about b to h.
• 1:40
  And he says, we're all human.
• 1:41
  And people need to talk to people that way.
• 1:43
  Reed has a plan to help you live your value so that you can attract, engage, and keep mind
• 1:49
  minded, like minded customers with what Reed calls reverse targeting.
• 1:54
  Is he author of the brand new book appreciated branding.
• 1:57
  So for more information, head over to appreciated branding dotcom.
• 2:02
  Read welcome to the small desktop podcast.
• 2:05
  Thanks, Melinda.
• 2:06
  It's a pleasure to be here.
• 2:07
  I'm honored to be your guests here.
• 2:09
  Thanks.
• 2:10
  So tell us, Reed, how did you get on this journey that you decided to stop working for
• 2:14
  the man to start working with the little people?
• 2:16
  Right?
• 2:17
  How did you go from all those big brands that you worked with with H And R Block and on and
• 2:23
  on.
• 2:23
  You worked some of the biggest brand campaigns in the world, and you've finally said enough
• 2:28
  already.
• 2:28
  So so talk to us about your journey.
• 2:31
  Yeah.
• 2:31
  That's, that's a great place to start.
• 2:34
  I think, for me, I spent 30 years, in the boardrooms of America, presenting big ideas for
• 2:43
  multimillion dollar campaigns.
• 2:46
  And, I realized as my kids reach high school, that that's a pretty femoral pursuit.
• 2:51
  I can go in.
• 2:52
  I I create something.
• 2:53
  It does its job, and and then it goes away.
• 2:57
  And when my kids were getting out of high school, I realized, what am I doing to make the
• 3:01
  world a better place?
• 3:02
  Like, is there is there something that I can do with my skill set that that can help with that.
• 3:07
  And I spent some time thinking about it.
• 3:09
  I looked over all the work I've done in my career, and I found a commonality that's kind
• 3:15
  of like a win win win where it's it's gonna help businesses do better and be more more
• 3:22
  meaningful, as a brand.
• 3:25
  It's going to drive higher business results, particularly for performance marketing, which
• 3:31
  is not necessarily a small business pursuit.
• 3:36
  And I've worked with lots of small businesses too.
• 3:38
  But in the bigger in the bigger kind of marketing world, performance marketing does
• 3:42
  much better when you have a well defined brand.
• 3:45
  And so and I and I would say in some cases, it's been proven to at least 4 x better.
• 3:50
  And then, I think lastly is the the 3rd win of this is that, by doing this kind of thing, the
• 3:57
  world will become a better place.
• 3:59
  And that's my ultimate goal.
• 4:00
  How do I leave the world a better play?
• 4:01
  I mean, the the old Indian line was we borrow the world from our children.
• 4:07
  Yes.
• 4:07
  Definitely.
• 4:08
  So your book is called Appreciated Branding.
• 4:11
  It's a term that you have coined.
• 4:13
  Why don't you explain to us what shameless plug?
• 4:17
  Why don't you tell us what is appreciated branding.
• 4:23
  Yeah.
• 4:23
  I think, to me, it's the next stage of what branding needs to become because we've gone
• 4:30
  from what is, and if you guys have ever heard of Rosa Reeves, but back in the 19 twenties, he
• 4:37
  coined a thing called the unique selling proposition.
• 4:39
  And that was a very rational statement.
• 4:42
  It's a it's a, well, to use a Saturday night live, reference.
• 4:47
  It's a floor polish that it's also a dessert topping.
• 4:49
  You know, it's a very rational, kind of appeal or, you know, softens your hands while you do
• 4:56
  the dishes or, you know, the quicker picker upper or the very rational very illogical
• 5:03
  appeals.
• 5:04
  And that worked for a long time, and it still works to a certain extent.
• 5:08
  But back in, you know, in in the interruption model, and you had mentioned interruption, when
• 5:13
  the interruption model started back in the fifties after the war, so many products were
• 5:19
  new and different and consumerism was just getting up on its feed and, you know, this kind
• 5:25
  of interruption model worked because it's just like, I've got a new washing machine.
• 5:28
  I need you to soap to want to run it.
• 5:31
  So poppers were the perfect thing to kind of advertise that.
• 5:34
  Right?
• 5:35
  People had the bandwidth to abide these kind of interruptions.
• 5:40
  So now it's 50, 60.
• 5:43
  What is it?
• 5:45
  You know, 60, 65 years later.
• 5:48
  And we were interrupted everywhere.
• 5:48
  We are we are literally
• 5:48
  pinged and dinged and and texted and, you
• 5:56
  know, there, I I'm reminded about that old video of the the poor woman who was responding
• 6:01
  to attacks walking through a mall, and she fell into a into a, a fountain, you know, because
• 6:06
  she was not paying attention.
• 6:09
  The the the human mind has a finite amount of of, in, you know, room for interruption and
• 6:17
  information processing.
• 6:18
  And the the nowadays, I think it's I think the the attention span is shorter than a goldfish.
• 6:25
  It's down to, like, 2.7, 2., you know, with 3 seconds.
• 6:28
  And, you know, that which speaks to a lot of what Latisha was saying, you know, you know,
• 6:33
  you've gotta be providing things that are of value that that attract people.
• 6:37
  That's what appreciated branding is.
• 6:39
  And I would crystalize it as doing basically selling you're not just showing that you care
• 6:46
  about yourself.
• 6:46
  You're you're showing that you care about the people you're trying to attract.
• 6:50
  So are you solving a problem that they don't recognize they have?
• 6:55
  That's essentially what appreciated branding is.
• 6:59
  So you mentioned, unique value proposition, but I know in your book, you talk about unique
• 7:05
  emotional solution.
• 7:07
  So tell me what what is that?
• 7:11
  Okay.
• 7:11
  So as a good example, I have a couple examples of it in my book, and that's a a term I coined
• 7:17
  because when you look at a lot of the what the bigger and better brands are doing these days,
• 7:21
  and I've realized that I've done some of this in my career as I look back on some of the work
• 7:25
  I did.
• 7:26
  You're you're not sol solving a rational problem.
• 7:29
  You're solving an emotional problem.
• 7:31
  You're you've found an emotional place to be.
• 7:33
  And I can give you 2 different examples of that.
• 7:36
  Number 1, from, let's say, a small business perspective.
• 7:38
  Let's say you're a a tennis coach, and you want to get more tennis lessons.
• 7:44
  And so you say, hey.
• 7:45
  I'm a tennis coach.
• 7:46
  Who wants tennis lessons?
• 7:47
  You know, he might get a little business here and there, but what emotional problem is he
• 7:52
  solving?
• 7:52
  It's a very rational promise.
• 7:54
  Oh, tennis lessons.
• 7:55
  Do I want tennis?
• 7:56
  No.
• 7:56
  Okay.
• 7:57
  But if you say something like, who has kids that are bouncing off the walls and the to be
• 8:02
  busy to give you a moment's rest.
• 8:04
  People are gonna go, oh, that's me.
• 8:07
  I get that.
• 8:08
  That that is me.
• 8:09
  I would actually, you know, I would love to get my kid's tennis lessons because I would have,
• 8:14
  some time to myself.
• 8:15
  I would get they would get exposed to a a good activity that will help that hopefully they'll
• 8:20
  have for life.
• 8:21
  And, you know, I I feel like emotionally, I'm doing a good thing for both me and my kids.
• 8:30
  So the you can kind of see the difference there.
• 8:32
  So on a bigger scale, and I do this, I have this example in my book, and I wish I had done
• 8:38
  this campaign.
• 8:39
  I didn't, but I I found it, and I'm so glad I did.
• 8:42
  And it's such a wonderful example, but So in India,
• 8:46
  there are basically, my understanding is there's 2 basically longer detergents that are
• 8:46
  fighting, constantly fighting for share, and they're both trying to be louder than they were
• 8:46
  last
• 8:49
  time.
• 8:58
  Get a little more far right of the decimal point share next time.
• 9:01
  And this is basically, you know, you're you're you're relegating yourself to a price decision
• 9:01
  because the laundry business back in the fifties was 3 or 4 different brands.
• 9:19
  And now go into Walmart and look at the laundry aisle.
• 9:22
  It's 30 feet long and 8 feet high with brands all solving the same problem.
• 9:27
  And that's something that, Latisha was saying earlier is just like, are you doing anything
• 9:31
  unique?
• 9:32
  What what is it that is different about you or how you wanna be or solve your problem?
• 9:37
  So what they did in India is they launched a campaign for this brand called Ariel where it
• 9:42
  wasn't, hey.
• 9:42
  We get white or whites or we do more bright colors.
• 9:46
  They realize, from a data point.
• 9:48
  And most of these ideas come from a data point that's a real truth about human existence and
• 9:53
  human life, and that's why I say b to h.
• 9:55
  And in this case, they found this this data point that 95% of the people in India still
• 10:01
  thought laundry was a woman's job.
• 10:03
  And so Ariel came out and said, is that right?
• 10:06
  I mean, we're just throwing it out there, and they had a a hashtag they called share the
• 10:10
  load.
• 10:11
  Share the load took off.
• 10:14
  I mean, they they had commercials that showed, you know, a woman coming home from work.
• 10:18
  Her husband's reading the paper on the couch.
• 10:20
  She's picking up toys.
• 10:21
  She's trying to get dinner on the table.
• 10:23
  She's on the phone with her last minute thing from work.
• 10:25
  She's texting and emailing, and through sun, shouts from upstairs is my green shirt clean.
• 10:30
  I need it tonight.
• 10:31
  And it as uh-uh, a line just comes up and says, why is laundry still just a woman's job?
• 10:36
  And they it killed.
• 10:39
  It killed.
• 10:40
  Sales went up 76%.
• 10:43
  76%.
• 10:45
  You don't get that from promotional marketing.
• 10:48
  Right.
• 10:48
  And the reason that happened is because the because women who by law under detergent said,
• 10:48
  thank you.
• 10:48
  Thank you for giving me some air cover here
• 10:48
  because I've been swimming in in laundry for 30 years.
• 11:01
  You know?
• 11:02
  So that's what I'm talking about.
• 11:04
  That is appreciated branding.
• 11:06
  An act of good was done.
• 11:09
  And and I wanna make sure there's a I wanna make a point here.
• 11:12
  There's a very difference between a very big difference between purpose based, advertising
• 11:17
  and purpose based marketing because that's really I think a lot of people see that as this
• 11:22
  grand altruism.
• 11:23
  Like, we're replanting trees in the in the rain forest.
• 11:28
  But it would be much more meaningful to me and much more helpful to me in my daily life if you
• 11:33
  repainted trees in the neighborhood where I live.
• 11:36
  Now I'm like, oh, thank you.
• 11:38
  Thanks for doing that.
• 11:39
  This is something I see every day, and I can truly appreciate.
• 11:42
  So that hopefully, that helps you kind of understand the difference, of between where I
• 11:48
  think branding needs to go to a breakthrough because we're all getting 10,000 messages a
• 11:52
  day.
• 11:53
  I don't know what to care about.
• 11:54
  I don't even have time to pay attention to stuff.
• 11:56
  If you're talking to me on a values channel that I already care about, you're gonna get my
• 12:01
  attention, and you're gonna be much more meaningful to me as I go forward.
• 12:05
  I love that.
• 12:06
  Talking to people on a values channel.
• 12:08
  I love that.
• 12:09
  I'm gonna use that I'm a I'm a give you credit read the first time I use it, but know that I'm
• 12:14
  going to use that.
• 12:15
  But let's talk about, are there key components to an appreciated branding strategy?
• 12:21
  Is it is it you gotta dig into the data?
• 12:23
  You gotta find the data point?
• 12:25
  Well, I think some of the key components are generally you have to first two thing you have
• 12:31
  to do is ask a question.
• 12:32
  Are you rationally unique in the world?
• 12:35
  Is what you sell or the service or product you sell?
• 12:38
  Is it unique enough?
• 12:39
  That, you know, on its own merits is like a thank you.
• 12:44
  So when
• 12:44
  Uber came out, for example, completely unique, completely changed
• 12:44
  the category, and it needed explanation because it was a rational promise.
• 12:57
  Now they're more competitive, and they they have to appeal to things and find different
• 13:01
  ways to appeal based on more of an emotional, unique emotional solution.
• 13:05
  Right?
• 13:05
  So the they're they're starting to do more of that because now they're the category is
• 13:11
  getting although that's that's not a great example of a of a much more crowded category
• 13:15
  because there's it's still pretty open.
• 13:18
  But if you think about you know, candy bars is another example I have in the book.
• 13:24
  Finally, Snickers realized that Hackwith's, peanuts, Snickers really satisfied satisfies.
• 13:31
  It's kind of an indulgent message, a rational message about the rational benefits of that
• 13:37
  product
• 13:38
  that isn't necessarily very, you know, persuasive because you're selling the category.
• 13:38
  You're basically selling indulgence.
• 13:38
  Snickers finally figured out
• 13:48
  Well, what is it that what's a unique emotional solution that we can solve here?
• 13:52
  Oh, I've got it.
• 13:53
  Here's an insight, and this is another one of the things that that these things have in
• 13:56
  common.
• 13:57
  It's an it comes out of an insight that hasn't been recognized and nobody owns yet.
• 14:02
  And their insight, it was You know, when you're hungry, you're just not performing your best.
• 14:06
  Snickers can be that solution, that unique emotional solution.
• 14:09
  So now Snickers is, you know, you're not yourself and you're hungry.
• 14:09
  Grab a Snickers.
• 14:15
  And then he got Betty White on the Super Bowl, you know, playing a, you know, playing a, a
• 14:21
  guy, you know, who's bonking.
• 14:24
  He he doesn't have any energy.
• 14:25
  And, you know, it's it's it was it was a global campaign, and it killed, and it did great.
• 14:30
  But that's that's the shift.
• 14:32
  You have to shift from okay.
• 14:33
  I'm either crew I'm either com contributing to a ton of noise.
• 14:38
  And therefore, if I'm getting through, people are gonna go, okay.
• 14:42
  I'll consider you, but it's really about price.
• 14:45
  Or you're doing something where you go, oh, they get me.
• 14:47
  They care about me.
• 14:49
  They're doing something to help me recognize a problem.
• 14:52
  I didn't realize I had, and that's really cool.
• 14:55
  And I I wanna give them my attention and my business.
• 14:59
  Well, what are some of the challenges with this, though?
• 15:02
  Right?
• 15:02
  Because every brand doesn't fit into this.
• 15:05
  We care about you box.
• 15:07
  Right?
• 15:07
  Sometimes your toilet tissue is just toilet tissue.
• 15:10
  Right?
• 15:10
  You know what I mean?
• 15:11
  Like, How do are there challenges around using this philosophy, which is any product or
• 15:16
  service?
• 15:18
  It takes it's it's it takes work, but you need to find ideas that are I mean, if you think
• 15:24
  about a Venn diagram, what is it you do?
• 15:26
  What is it know, what are the values of the business of the company?
• 15:30
  You know, and you have to make sure that you're true to that.
• 15:33
  Now there may be values to to, I'm trying to think if there was another example, Oh, another
• 15:43
  example in the book, for example, is, is for an alcoholic beverage.
• 15:44
  Okay?
• 15:44
  So what what there's a a brand called Rua Vieja.
• 15:44
  It's a Spanish brand of liquor.
• 15:55
  It's kind of like a, you know, what is that?
• 16:00
  Urban cognac?
• 16:02
  Yeah.
• 16:02
  It it's a it's like a the stuff you drink around the holidays, it's kinda I can't think
• 16:08
  of it.
• 16:08
  It's a it's a chocolatey kind of a anyway,
• 16:11
  Oh, I know.
• 16:12
  Oh, Kahlua?
• 16:12
  Is it like Kahlua?
• 16:13
  Yeah.
• 16:13
  That kind of thing.
• 16:14
  Right.
• 16:14
  So it's a it's a liquor.
• 16:16
  So they're they're competing, and you might think, well, how could a co how could a liquor
• 16:22
  be an appreciated brand?
• 16:23
  I mean, how do you create appreciation for for a brand like that.
• 16:28
  Well, what they did is they started looking around, and they're like, well, what are the
• 16:31
  moments that this brand is used for?
• 16:34
  Well, people use it, or this product even, you know, that that no one else has capitalized on.
• 16:40
  So they realized that people drink liquor and liquor and these types of things when they're
• 16:46
  sitting with their friends, when they're having a, you know, having, after work or or doing
• 16:46
  something together.
• 16:46
  So what they did is they realized and and they they found a tool that happened to exist in
• 16:58
  Spain, and I I need to dig out.
• 17:00
  I'd love to learn more about this, but but it is an example.
• 17:02
  It really pertinent here.
• 17:05
  There's a tool that existed where you could go I think they created it as a oh, they created
• 17:10
  it as an online tool, and that's another thing that I should mention is one of the
• 17:13
  commonalities of an appreciated branding approach is that it always has a hub.
• 17:17
  Share the load hashtag.
• 17:20
  In this case, their their idea was we need to spend more time together.
• 17:24
  And the motivator behind that was you could go to this website and you could put in a friend,
• 17:30
  how old they are, and or a relative or whatever, and it would literally kind of go
• 17:35
  through a lot some machinations and some some kind of algorithm, and it would say you have 4
• 17:40
  hours left in your life with this person.
• 17:42
  And they would basically go because people are gonna people work.
• 17:45
  Things get canceled.
• 17:45
  People, have trips.
• 17:51
  You know, people's and they really go, you might think you you're 50 now, and you've got
• 17:56
  30 years left.
• 17:57
  But in reality, when life comes and all the things you have to do come along, you really
• 18:02
  only have 10 to 12 hours left that you're gonna spend time with this person.
• 18:06
  So spend it wisely and enjoy that time.
• 18:09
  And that's where this idea of you have we have to spend more time together came.
• 18:13
  And in that case, sales went up 46%.
• 18:17
  Because it had that unique emotional solution.
• 18:19
  You're not just selling me Liqueur, and you're not selling it to me on the rational benefits
• 18:23
  of taste or variety or whatever.
• 18:26
  You're saying you didn't real you might not realize this, but the amount of time you have
• 18:31
  left spend with your loved ones isn't as much as you thought.
• 18:34
  Take some time and and do that.
• 18:37
  Thank you.
• 18:38
  Thank you for telling me that.
• 18:39
  Thank you for figuring that out for me.
• 18:41
  I really appreciate that because I do love these people, and I do wanna spend more time
• 18:46
  with them.
• 18:46
  They did an online video, almost a documentary about this, and they had people people were
• 18:52
  crying.
• 18:52
  They didn't realize that they just didn't have that much time.
• 18:56
  And so that's where this really starts to take root is you've got the opportunity in whatever
• 19:01
  your business is, whatever your product is, whatever your service is, look at the usage,
• 19:07
  times that you that if it gets used.
• 19:12
  Look at what surrounds it.
• 19:13
  Look at cultural cues.
• 19:14
  Look at how the world has changed.
• 19:15
  You know, in the in the laundry example, I feel like I'm going off here, like, so I'll shut up
• 19:22
  in a second.
• 19:22
  But the laundry example It's the same it's always the same question, but the answer is
• 19:27
  different.
• 19:28
  So in the fifties, the question was how do we help women do laundry?
• 19:32
  And the answer back then was, one cap full does a whole load or whatever, you know, a very
• 19:36
  rational promise.
• 19:38
  The answer to that question, how do we help women get their laundry done is they need some
• 19:44
  help.
• 19:45
  Let's let's get them some help because this is crazy that they're still doing all of
• 19:50
  everybody's laundry.
• 19:51
  So That that's another commonality is it's usually the same question.
• 19:56
  If it's just like, what has changed in society or culture or or that kind of thing that that
• 20:00
  you can provide a different perspective on or a different answer that people go, oh my god.
• 20:04
  Thank you for I'd never even thought of that.
• 20:06
  That's really helpful.
• 20:08
  I love it.
• 20:08
  I love it.
• 20:09
  Alright.
• 20:10
  Read, what
• 20:11
  is the best business advice you've
• 20:11
  ever been given?
• 20:12
  You know, it actually comes from a book, and it's
• 20:21
  a a book called Thinking Growrich, and it's and and it sounds like it's about, you know, how to
• 20:27
  get rich, but it really is about a rich life.
• 20:29
  And it's about, deciding what you want and letting the universe help you get there.
• 20:35
  And that's that's more of the journey I'm on.
• 20:38
  Right?
• 20:38
  I know it sounds kind of very fairy, but that's the journey I'm on right now.
• 20:41
  And I have to say the universe is coming back.
• 20:44
  And the me being here is a perfect example of that.
• 20:47
  You know, a week ago, Belinda, you and I were talking on a on a different, platform.
• 20:53
  And you invited me here, and I'm so grateful.
• 20:56
  And I I would a a week ago, I never would have said.
• 20:58
  I'd be on this podcast, which which has all these viewers and so many great smart people
• 21:02
  that now I'm a part of that group.
• 21:04
  And I'm gratitude is the biggest thing, I think.
• 21:09
  It's and it's, at the heart of this book that I've written, but I think it opens up doors and
• 21:14
  it and it and that kind of positive, look at the world helps you receive things in a more
• 21:21
  positive way as opposed to just complaining that that things aren't going well or whatever.
• 21:25
  There's always things going well.
• 21:26
  Celebrate those things.
• 21:27
  Think about those things.
• 21:29
  Well, my my father used to have a saying.
• 21:31
  He used to say that you're supposed to thank god for the bad days too, right, so that you
• 21:36
  wouldn't know what good days were if you didn't That's a good point.
• 21:39
  Bad days.
• 21:40
  Right?
• 21:40
  So it's like, you have to be grateful for the journey, I think.
• 21:44
  Yeah.
• 21:44
  Yeah.
• 21:45
  It's
• 21:45
  basically, what I think you're saying.
• 21:47
  But I think that's so beautiful and poignant read.
• 21:49
  And I'm so grateful that we met.
• 21:51
  I'm excited about your book.
• 21:53
  Appreciated branding.
• 21:59
  Thanks for listening to the Small Biz chat podcast with Melinda Emerson.
• 22:04
  Subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and join us next Wednesday for more
• 22:09
  fantastic information and interviews.
• 22:12
  You can find more sources and small business success strategies by visiting Melinda's
• 22:16
  website succeed as your own boss.com.
• 22:20
  Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next week.