MV newsletter - September 2004

Link to Mud Valley™ brand marketing community membership page and special offers

Don’t you just want to slap him………?

And you can at AD1

And then cool down with this: AD2

Barbarians at the Gates………………..

We recently opened the Forbes list of the celebrity rich and interesting – rich because of what they have grossed (and we are choosing our words carefully here), and interesting because people take an interest in them.

The good news is that if you are earning at least $5 million a year, you have a fighting chance of being in the list, so long as you do it in a way that gets people talking about you. Of course, the more money you make, the more people will talk about you anyway.

Mel Gibson is at the top of the list for his film promoting Christ. Tiger Woods is number two. He has been promoting Accenture.

However, these celebrities are chicken-feed compared to these other guys.

Lists can change the world.

You take the high road, I’ll take the low road……………..

Many of us are focused on business success – but our roads may not be the same.

Most corporate big-hitters do not get there by sheer chutzpah. The Harvard Business Review has recently published an article extolling “Stealth Managers”. It recognises that there are some big name CEOs (Jack Welch, Lee Iacocca etc.) who live off their personalities, but the HBR view is that they are rarely much use to their corporations.

They make a lot of noise, they invest in a major re-branding program, but they do not tackle the critical performance issues. Stealth managers, on the other hand, are slow and unexciting, they buy time to make decisions, and they move forward cautiously having built a consensus - and are ultimately effective.

Joan Gustafson (with whom some of us at Mud Valley have worked) is currently selling a training program that is also about making it in the corporate world. If you are in doubt, the answer is to appear confident (“fake it until you make it”), praise others, and have impeccable personal hygiene.

This is unlike the big pioneers, whom the UK Daily Telegraph recognises as being of a different breed. The number one example of the moment is Michael O’Leary of Ryanair, who is as charming on camera as he is outspoken in print.

We cannot remember his exact words, but they usually run something along the lines of “What are they complaining about? They are rich enough to have second homes in the sun. We sell them cheap flights. And they still want their money back if they change their minds about booking a flight!” You will realise that we have excluded about half the words that originally adorned each sentence, and that he is talking about his customers.

Not all the entreprenaires (sic) are quite as blatant as this, but if you watch Larry Ellison, Richard Branson, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates for a while, you will realise that they did not make it by stealth management.

Where do you want to place your bet? It is the one road or the other – there is no mix-and-match.

MV personalities………………

As you may know by now, Mud Valley has a series of personal brand assessment tools.

• Willing to openly praise others (power move, this)
• Slow to anger
• Practical
• Loyal friends
• Cautious in relation to new ideas
• Tough negotiators
• Unwilling to break the law, even to gain a major advantage
• Definitely willing to take risks for someone they love
• Willing to risk social embarrassment to protect others
• Willing to be polite even to those they disapprove of
• Happy and easy-going
• Gentle
• Kind
• Enthusiastic
• Willing to turn the other cheek when insulted (this one really surprised us)
• Devoted to their family
• Successful in business

What a nice bunch of people we seem to attract. And, quite rightly, they see no particular reason to change.

The trick of our approach, however, is to get people to describe themselves and compare it with the way others describe them - but that bit is confidential.

If you want to know more, click here.

Big personalities, small companies…………………

There has recently been some research into why SMEs (small, medium enterprises) do not really exploit the principles of corporate branding – at least until the benefits are forcibly pointed out to them.

Two of the reasons are because they tend to be hooked on the quality of their products/services, and because they are more motivated by the short term.

However, the third reason was because they intrinsically dislike the idea of their company having a bigger, longer-lasting brand than themselves.

There is a transition in any entrepreneurial company’s life when the dominant owner has to give way to the corporate view.

Naughty but nice………………….

Do the rich and famous own lots of luxury brands? We don’t know, but it is the sort of link we need here.

So what defines a luxury brand?

The long answer is to click here to access the detailed questions you would ask.

The simpler answer is to decide how your brand performs in these 5 key areas:

1. conspicuousness
2. uniqueness
3. quality
4. hedonism (does it give you a good time?)
5. extended self (reinforcing an idealised, stretched version of yourself)

If you want to know more, read up on it in the ever-excellent Journal of Brand Management.

For further information, please contact enquiries@mudvalley.co.uk

© 2004, Mud Valley ™ brand marketing community.

Link to Mud Valley™ brand marketing community membership page and special offers

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