Danger, Will Robinson!

“Can you grab a water for me?”

“We’re going to start looking for an SUV.”

“I really need a new smartphone.”

Anything in particular stand out to you in those quotes? How about the fact that forms are taking precedence over brands? Marketers, consider it a warning sign of iffy brand health if your target thinks in terms of form first, brand second.

Litmus Test:

How would your brand rank if you augmented your awareness measures with brand versus form measures?

• Example:   When thinking about your next purchase of popcorn, please rank your top three considerations/desires in order of importance.
• Microwavable
• Kernels that are popped in oil
• Extra butter
• Orville Redenbacher
• No or Low salt
• Act II
• Flavored, such as caramel, cheddar or nacho
• Low fat
• Branded, not store brand or generic

I know how I’d answer this question:
1. Microwavable  2. Extra butter   3. Branded

Orville and Act II, you don’t make the list. They should worry.

Should you?

Kwik Trip

Television

One of the best things about Kwik Trip is the good, fresh food. The other is that the employees are dependably friendly. This spot showcases how refreshing and unfussy it is to stop at Kwik Trip versus the competition. For starters, you can get a great cup of coffee with a name you can actually pronounce.

Kwik Trip – Television – Café O’What?

 • Download Multimedia Example

Kwik Trip

Television

Kwik Trip’s customers are always on the go and deserve a gasoline with a guarantee like Top Tier Gas to get them where they need to be. This spot uses a unique time-lapse approach to bring to life the value that Kwik Trip delivers to its customers every day.

Kwik Trip

Television

Kwik Trip hangs its uncomplicated hat on two things: Good, fresh food that’s delivered daily to all their stores and friendly employees. Here, we take a polite jab at the competition to highlight the fact that you can quickly and conveniently pick up the fresh essentials you need each day without having to, say, trek 100 yards across the store.

Kwik Trip

Television

Many of Kwik Trip’s customers are always on the go, always with a long to-do list. Kwik Trip makes their day just a little bit better and easier by bringing good fresh food, delivered daily, without a middleman’s markup, all just steps from the car. This spot uses a unique time-lapse approach to bring to life the value that Kwik Trip delivers to its customers every day.

Sometimes it’s the obvious that gets overlooked

At my house, we tend to get quite a number of duplicate catalogs in the mail. Either I’m listed twice with two different last names or my husband and I both get sent copies of the same thing. When this happens, I usually try to call to remove one or both names from their list. But I ran into a problem here, as this company only provided their vanity 1-800 number (on every other page of their catalog):

At the time, I did not have access to a phone with a normal keypad—my smart phone was equipped with a non-standard keyboard—and I couldn’t call in until I went online and found a visual on Wikipedia.

I’m willing to bet that the phone number listing never gets a second thought each and every time this catalog gets proofed.

Experiences like this should remind us to periodically review old assumptions about how consumers communicate with brands. Time to retire that yellow page ad and put funding towards paid search instead? Have you devised a mobile strategy for reaching your target market?

No matter the medium, always provide consumers with multiple ways of contacting you. Make room for the numeric phone number beside your vanity number on printed catalogs.  For online retailing, make sure there is an email contact and phone number in addition to an online contact form at minimum. See this post for more info about designing usable contact forms.

Fiskars

Logo

Famous Footwear

Television

Dean Health System

Television

Infantino

Print