There’s a word for that – brand language that makes a difference.

I was introduced last week to a genuinely fabulous organisation called Free Word. Their mission is both worthy and joyous – to promote and protect the written and spoken word.

We spent an outstanding evening in Farringdon in the company of some of the country’s finest young poets, including the current Young Poet Laureate for London Aisling Fahey, DJ James Massiah, and polymath Mark Rylance, whose ability to soothe, cajole & excite simultaneously through speech, whether writing or performing, is simply remarkable.

That evening I learned that our language houses a word for the state of finding it hard to get out of bed in the morning: ‘dysania’. Look it up if you don’t believe me.

We also own a word to describe your hesitation when introducing someone whose name has temporarily deserted you: ‘tartle’. And what a fine word it is too.

I left inspired by the wonder of language, and wondering why so few brands ever use its power and range to genuinely attempt to stimulate emotions and to differentiate. 

We’re all taught one or more languages from a young age. Most of us then shuffle our vocabulary like Scrabble pieces throughout our lives, here and there picking up a new word to drop periodically into our familiar speech patterns. As we saw in last month’s blog, the same is true for whole categories of brands.

If this sounds familiar and you work in branding you’ll find yourself at a distinct disadvantage. For whilst the visual impact of any branded experience has immense and instant power to persuade, it is the sound of a brand that lingers long afterwards.

This is because we access and communicate our thoughts and feelings using words. Which means that the words we use to describe our brands have the potential for greater long-term persuasive impact than what it looks like.

As a brand owner, perhaps spend a little more time crafting the sound of your brands, rather than the logo, for the simple reason that you can create a longer lasting impact on the brands’ performance and that of your business.

So this afternoon, why not follow the Twitter hashtag #freewordoftheday for some verbal inspiration instead of striding around as though you’re busy even though you’re not. Yup, there’s a word for that too...

Brand language: it all sounds the same.

Some years ago I took my new wife to our first ever gig, a now commonplace comeback of a band of my youth.  Child number 1 was imminent and it looked like the last opportunity for a DINKY night out for before life changed forever.

In advance I thought it wise to prepare my eager but musically inexperienced partner for the evening’s entertainment.  I played her the band’s greatest hits, confident that she’d fall in love with the mellifluous tones and waves of dynamic variety and of wryly-observed insights about life in my youth.  

Except she didn’t.  “It all sounds the same” she confessed.  And, disappointingly, she was right.  The key, rhythm, timbre, structure, subject matter and idiosyncratic quirkiness that made the debut single so engaging had been repeated so faithfully and repetitively that it wasn’t clear where one song ended and another began.  It also quickly became very dull.

Whole brand categories fall into this trap.  A player creates a new and different category and others plough in to enjoy the growth. They do everything right except create or describe anything different, therefore offering consumers no reason to choose them.

For example, here is the language used on the websites of the top 8 UK gyms and health clubs last month.  It reveals the generic language of the category.

And here’s the language used by one of the follower brands.

So, how does this slavishly imitated language help prospective customers to choose this brand?

Of course, it doesn’t, which leaves price as one of the main drivers of choice.  And typically this means these prices are forced downwards as customers don’t know what extra brand value to pay for.  This removes financial value from the sector, making it harder to compete.

So if your brand language sounds the same as the rest of the category you need to plan for margins to be squeezed.  Alternatively, surprise yourselves and your customers by singing a different tune.

Top 5 branding tips for your start-up business

Here at Mimo Brands we've put together here top 5 branding tips for your start-up business. New and early stage businesses usually have an unwieldy quantity of issues on which to focus their limited time. Those activities that look like delivering the least prospect of early returns often get left till later. And later can easily turn into never.

In the case of branding, this can be an expensive decision. For global giants and start-ups alike, our brands are an essential part of helping our customers to choose us over our competitors. If you don’t crack this at the outset with your start-up business, you may never get a second chance.

These top 5 branding tips for your start-up should give you a good start. 

      1. Don’t mistake your logo for your brand.

The logo is simply a visual element of your brand. Think of it as the tip of the iceberg that you can see.

The main elements of your brand will lie beneath the waterline. It is much more important to understand and define who you are as a management team and why you exist as a start-up business beyond simply making money, what position you’re taking in the market, and what you promise your fellow workers and customers alike. 

Most importantly for your start-up, you need to understand why the world is going to be a better place with your business in it (i.e. what problems are you solving).  

2.   Differentiate or die.

There are usually only 2 ways to make a success of your business: be cheaper or be different.

Even the most cursory understanding of supply chains reveals that, unless you possess a particularly smart business model, sustaining a lower cost base is mighty challenging if you want to make a profit.

Being different is easy to talk about but strangely difficult to deliver, rarely because of a shortage of ideas, but usually because human nature drags us back to behavioural norms as soon as there is a whiff of resistance. In short, we like the idea of being different somewhat more than the reality.

Furthermore, to be useful, your point of differentiation needs to be valued by your customers so much that they will pass on their usual choice in favour of your brand. 

3.   Have a point of view.

Today’s brand development is more akin to joining debates than it is to shouting your message from a soapbox.

The starting point is, unsurprisingly, your customers, about whom you should understand much.  What are the pressures and interest in their lives?  What makes them tick? What gets on their wicks? What helps them to decide which brands to choose in your sector? 

Don’t guess. Find out and offer an opinion on how to improve their lives through what you do, how you do it, and why you’re doing it.

Once upon a time you could make up your brand’s heritage, and so long as you could tell a good story, you could convince an unknowing public that you were the brand of choice amongst the Tudors.  Not any more.  Social media has put an end to that. 

4.    Be open.

Like differentiation, genuine openness is easy to talk about but unintuitive to most people.  This is because it requires letting go and trusting others unconditionally.

It is important because being a brand owner today doesn’t mean you own your brand.  Your brand is like a small child growing up in the world – you can guide and direct, provide support and encouragement, but ultimately he/she/it will be a product of nurture and nature.  And you’ll struggle to control the nature part.  You have to place your trust in others.

At one end of the scale you have Ricardo Semler who built his business on such levels of trust that he let his employees decide how much they got paid and the number of days holiday they could take.

At the other end it involves engaging with your customers publicly (usually through social media), quickly and honestly.

5.   If you are genuinely different and better than everyone else, and will continue to be, you can worry less about your brand.

I keep hearing how the Googles and Facebooks of this world never spent a dime on advertising, so why should a start-up?

The answer is threefold:

• Advertising isn’t branding, it is simply a communication channel. They have invested heavily in their brands since day 1.
• They had game changing business models that gave them distinct and sustainable advantages in their categories
•  They’re advertising now.

Good luck.

If you need any help with your brand simply drop us an email at giles@mimobrands.com 

Be confident in naming your brand

If I got an English pound for every time a business asked me to give them a name like ‘Google’ I’d be a wealthy man.  Their thinking is usually sound – it will help them to differentiate from the crowd in their market. The trouble is, when presented with names like ‘Google’ or ‘Yahoo’ the business suddenly loses all confidence.  It seeps from them in front of my very eyes as they contemplate their new logo on their website, in a supermarket aisle or store frontage. Google-type names sound just too...different. The trouble with made-up or ‘clever’ names (that have a back story) is they tend not to trigger any familiarity bells, so they get rejected by businesses.

“It should do exactly what it says on the tin” I hear. No it shouldn’t if you are late to the market and there are already 1001 competitors already trampling on your new patch.

So they are offered names that communicate invariably generic attributes or benefits, literally and metaphorically, which of course they think are too dull. And the .com domain isn’t available. So off we head to Google-land again.

There are some great exceptions to this rule – Moonpig, Moo.com and Ocado being a few - fun and distinctive names that mean absolutely nothing, but which we can remember with relative ease. Unlike easyprint, cardsmadeeasy and other slightly dull generics.

Our Story

Mimo was created from the names of our director’s children. It also means Multiple Inputs Multiple Outputs, which describes our approach to brand development, and is therefore what we do every day to create lasting differentiation for our clients.

On discussing the subject of naming your brand on Twitter, there is a common theme emerging with these successful businesses:

Branding, Naming, Name, Creation, marketing

Branding, marketing, naming, brand name

The simpler your business name, the more impact it will have.

A great, simple, short name can create a real buzz and position you as a real competitor. You will differentiate yourself from the crowd with an aspect of mystery from the offset. Just like if someone tells you that they have a secret, you will instantly want to find out more. It is that level of power that really makes a great brand.

Your brand values are important too and remember to keep this in mind. A way to support your brand name further is to use a 'tagline' for example, Nike's 'Just Do It' and you should refer back to this tagline when presenting your brand to someone new and to the public.

Mimo Hints:

1. Like so many things in business life, the whole process should start with a written brief that both parties agree to and sign in blood.
2. Agree the success criteria and stick to them. (Ignore the CEO’s wife who doesn’t like the name because it reminds her of a family pet.)
3. Reject the existing language of the category unless you’re first or second in.
4. Acknowledge inevitable early discomfort of sharing your chosen name (like when you announced your first born was to be called Isambard)
5. Remember, a name is what you make of it.  Google, Apple, Virgin are global brands which we now think are great names, not the other way round.

If you need some advice with your branding strategy please feel free to get in contact with us at Mimo.

Branding in the iGaming sector

There are a multitude of similarities between the sectors of online gaming and video gaming; each driven by the latest generation of technology; skilled teams looking to create hit graphically charged games; boasting multi-million budgets and followed by a dedicated base of players and fans. However, according to Giles Thomas, founder and partner, MIMO Brands, the similarities are as nothing compared to one striking difference - where video gaming has its iconic brands such as Sonic the Hedgehog, Lara Croft and Call of Duty - there are, in his opinion, few if any defining brands in online gaming yet. Mr. Thomas is a branding expert with experience across a range of different categories and has acute knowledge of the video gaming sector as the former European Marketing Director at SEGA, having also worked in the same role for MTV Networks Europe. His view is that all marketers can benefit from the learning and experiences of their piers in other sectors, and that an insular approach can only lead to isolation to a sector, including potentially igaming.

Brands People Love

"If you look at the brands people love, the ones they most associate with, you’ll find none currently from the world of igaming, which I believe is a missed opportunity given the size of the online gaming business” states Mr Thomas. "The online gaming sector is at the point the video gaming industry was before the arrival of brands such as Sonic, Tombraider, Harry Potter and Call of Duty. These new brands were driven by a different approach to brand development and marketing, and they set new benchmarks for their industry. iGaming marketers can choose to embark on a similar path to create brands with meaning and value, to spark their own brand revolution, or to continue to rely on the trench warfare of free trial and incentives."

Mr. Thomas references numerous industries in which the creation of brands redefined the sector. Mobile phone industry branding and marketing were revolutionised by Hutchinson Telecom launching the Orange brand that promised a brighter, wire-free future in a sector previously content with fighting a coverage and price war. In so doing the brand created customer preference and enormous value for then and future parent companies. Apple changed the multiple clone PC sector into the biggest brand on the planet. And the question is, can the online gaming sector do the same? "Online gaming can enter a new phase and begin to think bigger about brands - it needs to move from 'look what we can do' into customer orientated brands whereby players think - 'that's the brand for me,'" states Mr. Thomas.

There are strong parallels between the igaming sector and the early years of the video gaming sector; each with very fragmented markets. However, as we saw in video gaming, the online sector will consolidate and as that happens the combined budgets allow for the creation of a different type of branding. It's not entirely budget led - but the desire to build long-term properties is about more than quarterly revenue figures. "Currently, the online gaming sector appears to be dominated by the short-termist view, whereas building brands requires quite opposite thinking," explains Mr. Thomas.

Current iGaming Campaigns

If you look at some of the advertising campaigns currently promoting igaming businesses, there remain massive cliches and stereotypes that are actually being encouraged by the companies involved. Actors renowned for playing gangsters help to reinforce perceptions of the category held by the wider public. "The semiotics of gambling communication have not only remained largely the same, but usually been reinforced - the strong common visual language that portrays poker in darkened rooms, betting conducted by hard men, and a sector that celebrates a slightly seedy image," said Mr. Thomas. "Given the technology behind many of these sites is much the same, every brand has the opportunity to think about building their own unique attributes. The makers of fizzy coloured water in cans can create brands as different as Coca Cola from Pepsi. Lager is very similar whatever can it is poured from, but the way the brand is perceived by the public is down to the way the owners have branded their products, injecting attitude, meaning and values that differentiate the product experience."

The negative public opinion surrounding betting and online gambling isn't something that phases Mr. Thomas or dampens his view of the potential of brands in igaming. "The video gaming industry received an enormous amount of stick over the last 15 years for its pedalling of increasingly violent games, partly aimed at young people," outlined Mr. Thomas. "The igaming sector must tackle similar challenges by really engaging with their customers. Branding helps define how you talk to your customers and behave around them - understanding your customer relationship is key, and the relationship between players, games, money and the emotional benefits of igaming. For example, there are many different types of players from novice to hard-core gamer, all playing for a slightly different combination of reasons. Businesses need too understand everything they can about their customers and build their brands around these insights."

"In my view, PaddyPower has demonstrated best an intention to create a differentiated brand. They have adopted some of the language of lager brands to create preference, and in so doing have managed to stand out from the igaming crowd. Their communication is usually unmistakably their own, which is a claim that few if any other igaming providers can make. This is a sector currently occupied by ‘brands’ where the customer is selecting their product of choice through promotion and convenience, rather than through brand association. Which is a shame, because there are multitude of opportunities for them to differentiate. Frankly, if insurance companies and price comparison sites can successfully differentiate, then you can bet that igaming brands can."

What is a brand? And building brand value.

Your definition of a brand will be different to mine. The Intellectual Property Office says this about a brand

A brand can be a trade name, a sign, symbol, slogan or anything that is used to identify and distinguish a specific product, service or business. But a brand is much more than this; it can also be a ‘promise of an experience’ and conveys to consumers a certain assurance as to the nature of the product or service they will receive and also the standards the supplier or manufacturer seeks to maintain.

A brand is an intangible asset of your business and is often the most valuable part. So how much is a brand worth?

Brand Value

A brand is really only worth what somebody is prepared to pay for it. If you were to try and calculate what a brand was worth on a business already for sale then in theory you could take the amount the business is to be sold for, deduct its fixed assets and the remainder, often referred to, as "Goodwill" is essentially the value of that businesses brand.

Calculating the value of your brand is a far greater task and there are many methods that we will discuss another day.

Building Value in Your Brand

If you are looking to sell your business then developing your brand is going to be key. Here are a few areas we suggest you focus to add value to your brand and increase its value.

• Develop Brand Guidelines and stick to them. Deliver what you promise, and don't promise more than you can deliver.
• Use Brand Targeting to find the people who will drive revenue and profits into your business.
• Engage your employees and bring them into the brand, they will probably be around for the new owners of your business and they are what makes the machine work.
• Clearly define your brand in a document that allows anybody to continue your work. This reduces the work involved in taking over a business and allows the new owners to focus on other areas.

A fun graphic

Giles Thomas Interview with SBC

An interview with Giles Thomas Founder and Director of Mimo Brands. SBC catches up with Giles Thomas Founder and Director of Mimo Brands. [intro] Prior to setting up Mimo, Giles was Director of Marketing at Sega and MTV Networks. Heading up launches of new technologies, programs and TV Channels. Giles will be a headline speaker at the upcoming EIG conference in Barcelona for gaming [/intro]

[hr]

Q1. Giles great to meet you, can you tells us more about Mimo Brands and how your agencies strategy to branding can help gaming operators.

Answer:

Mimo Brands was set up to help businesses generate the most value from their brands. Our clients typically have brands that are not working as well as they might, are struggling to migrate from one channel to another, or indeed need to develop new brands from scratch.

Our ‘product’ is the creation of relevant and differentiated brands. This is relevant to igaming operators because widespread platform sharing has led to a market inhabited by a multitude of very similar offerings. As a result, consumers find it difficult to choose between brands, and are happy to flit between them.

[hr]

Q2. In a market such as igaming where players can be tracked market and technologies can map out user behaviour Do you feel that in igaming marketing practices such as branding have taken a back-foot to more acquisition led practices such as Affiliates, PPC, SEO marketing?

Answer:

Indeed. But it is not unusual for relatively young markets to avoid strategic branding in favour of a promotions driven approach. The early days of mobile telecomms were very similar, as were console gaming. This is usually because it is often easier to promote what you do and offer trial incentives than to build compelling brand stories. The trouble is, the promotions approach ultimately drives value out of markets rather than building more profitable long-term relationships with loyal customers.

[hr]

Q3. There are many gaming brands that have both an online and offline presence. Many of these brands have tried to shift digital services to their offline customers believing that their brand would be the hook, however results have failed to transpire. Why is this and can having an offline and online presence harm a company’s brand?

Answer:

There are great examples of gaming brands successfully moving online – Playstation, Sega – and those successfully moving the other way – Angry Birds, Moshi Monsters. It is critical for organisations to understand what makes their brand special, and how to transfer these attributes to new channels, as opposed to simply adding a new distribution or marketing channel and hoping for the best.

The only real danger of taking an online brand offline, and visa versa, is if it is not well thought through. It is important to understand channels often perform different roles, and consequently the rules of engagement may differ.

[hr]

Q4. In a saturated online market place such as igaming, where many of the customers are recycled through multiple operators (be it poker, casino, Sportsbook or bingo) can there be such a thing as brand loyalty.

Answer:

There will only be brand loyalty when brands offer something that customers cannot easily find elsewhere. The starting point for this differentiation may or may not to product-based. For example, Orange’s enormous success in the UK mobile telecoms market was brand-led not product-led. Historically, one of the biggest barriers to entry for console gaming brands was the Playstation brand, not the product itself.

[hr]

Q5. The majority of iGaming brands operate using third party technologies to cater for their customers, meaning that we see the same products re-marketed and re-packaged. Operators use price/value differentials to attract the customer such as bonuses, cahback or money back offers as incentives. Is this not detrimental to brand marketing and how can you make sure that a brands principles survive in this tough environment?

Answer:

Successful brand development in any business rests primarily at the door of the senior management team, not simply the Marketing Director. Branding is a company-wide strategy whose purpose is to create long-term value for the business. It is not a short-term marketing cost.

[hr]

Q6: When companies revaluate their brand placement or position for a digital market place. What factors do they need to take into account and what competencies and knowledge’s should they acquire when they undertake this practice.

Answer:

There has been a tendency by some to presume that today’s markets are much the same as yesterday’s. Others dismiss half a century of brand thinking and practice as obsolete in digital market places. Both stances miss the point. Success today rests on having real and relevant insight about markets and their users, on using the fabulous tools that digital affords us to engage and to manage behaviours, and most of all, having the bottle to zag whilst the rest of the world is zigging.

[hr]

Q7. As a headlining speaker at EIG, what do you want your listeners to take from your speaker sessions with regards to branding in gaming?

Answer:

igaming branding and marketing will change. Those who lead this change will enjoy the greatest spoils.

I should be so lucky

Did you know that Angry Birds has thus far been downloaded over 1.9bn times, putting it in the hands of almost 1/3rd of the world’s population? Truly astonishing, and hats off to Finland’s finest.

As a curious brand person I wondered what was the secret of their unbelievable success. How did they manage to turn flying fowl into a worldwide phenomenon bigger than Manchester United? What was the magic potion?

I sensed that they have played a very smart hand indeed. Their monthly user base of 263m is second only to Facebook, and as I write over 400bn birds have been shot.

They have clearly done plenty extremely well.

They crafted the game well – learning as they did from at least 30 previous games before hitting the jackpot.

accel

They’ve recruited well – securing Accel in 2011 has provided cash, momentum and expertise. They’ve monetised the core product well – each in-game upgrade is increasingly successful.

They’ve innovated well, eg Star Wars themes and location-based gameplay.

They have extended the brand wisely and well, taking in books, learning, drinks, retail, activity parks and an impending full-length film release.

slash

And they’ve partnered well – from Slash to McDonalds to NASA.

mcd logo

This is all very well, but does it explain the success of a property that is currently the fastest growing consumer franchise ever?

I think not.

Like most mega-mega-properties (those that even my mum has heard of), I suspect that the biggest single contributor to worldwide success and untold fortune was…..luck.

Lady luck has shone brightly in Finland since 2009. Rovio didn’t plan for the iPhone to be the runaway platform it became. It didn’t plan for Apple UK to promote the game in the early days of the app store. David Cameron’s admission of his bird habit was not in the PR plan.

But to be fair, were the Rolling Stones ever the best band in the world? Or did they arrive with an anti-establishment message during a perfect storm of social change?

oasis v blur

Or would Oasis have ever been so shatteringly important without the fortuitous foil of Blur?

For all the expert delivery of a winning strategy, and the onions & pyramids that so many brand people peddle, it is usually a massive and unscheduled dollop of luck - being in the right place at the right time – that turns something good into something priceless.