Be Bold

Bold brands draw attention, start conversations, and create enthusiasts among customers. Bold can be brash (think “the Virginity Hit” or GoDaddy.com) or gentle (GE or Apple). The point, of course, is to stand out from the noise and speak passionately and meaningfully to your target audience (darn everyone else). As Confuscius said:

"Wherever you go, go with all your heart."

My favorite example of a bold brand full of heart is in the life sciences sector. This example is more visual than action-oriented (but hey, there's only so many ways to shake up Petri dishes and microscopes). Below is an array of images that researchers face everyday in their lab. Snooze. Where's the heart? Scientists are people too.

Photo courtesy of Invitrogen

 

Photo courtesy of Fisher Scientific

Photo courtesy of Qiagen

Enter EMD Millipore, a breath of fresh air in an otherwise stuffy lab. As limiting as the life science sector is, EMD Millipore is more than just a pretty face. Exhibit one is a slightly-too-long, slightly offensive yet funny video promoting a protein detection system. Sounds dull, right? Not so. While this video is amusing for anyone, there clearly many inside jokes that will resonate with the target audience.

My totally unscientific conclusion is that Merck's acquisition of the former Millipore for $7.2 billion (after Millipore rejected an offer from Thermo Fisher Scientific for $6 billion) proves that sharing a little heart has gone a long way for EMD Millipore.

Sincere Communications

Confucius, according to the wise editors at Wikipedia, was a Chinese thinker in the fifth and sixth century B.C. who philosophized on government morality, social relationships, justice, and sincerity. In the time since his death, his pupil-compiled tome Analects has been dissected ad nauseum to provide modern audiences with guidance on topics such as love, government, death, and learning. Here we examine his teachings for counsel conduct in marketing communicatinos. We start with:

Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles.

Being sincere with and true to your customers is a virtue. In this era of open communication between and among brands and customers, it’s disappointing to see companies violating the trust of consumers. Transgressions leave a bad taste, such as the Nvidia scandal in 2006 when the graphics chip manufacturer was accused of seeding gaming and PC hardware discussion boards. They claimed these were just fans who were recruited to answer technical questions of other board users and that these “fans” were not paid. They just received some free hardware. Is that so wrong? As of October 2009, it is, according to the Federal Trade Commission, who issued guidelines for how to comply with the FTC Act in the digital age.

To be fair, there are plenty of inspiring mea culpa’s in the history of marketing communications (or in significant cases, crisis communications).  Johnson & Johnson’s Tylenol recall in 1982 is the most iconic example. The company pulled millions of bottles off store shelves. Though the cyanide-tainted tablets were contaminated after they had left the hands of J&J subsidiary McNeil, the press and public praised the company for acting responsibly. They were not as excited after the most recent recalls that occurred this year. They should have studied their own history better, or have read a little Confucius.