Back when I was working in agency-land, I had an original thought I was rather proud of.
I called it “the portable idea”, and the gist was that for a piece of marketing to be effective, it needed to communicate the brand’s message not only if you saw it, but also if somebody told you about it.
For example, do you remember when Red Bull got that guy Felix Baumgartner to jump out of that balloon on the edge of space? That was a portable idea – because if I simply told you about it, you would still understand implicitly that Red Bull was all about pushing the limits of human potential.
(Plus it was cool enough that I would tell you about it).
By contrast, a recent ad campaign for British Airways (that industry people seemed to love for some reason), which simply showed a picture of someone looking out of an aircraft window, does not pass that test. There is no marketing value if I tell you “BA did an ad with someone looking out of a window”. No message is passed here – even if the original creative had the desired effect.
In essence a portable idea is the opposite of the old adage “you had to be there”.
Anyway I haven’t thought of this for a long time, but the other day this occurred to me:
Businesses need to be portable ideas too.
This is not a concept simply limited to ads; it applies directly to what you do. How so? Simple: if a random person describes your business to someone, will they do it in a way that makes your business sound appealing and interesting?
In most cases the answer is “hell no”.
And that is an insane missed opportunity – because this nugget of comms is an asset. It’s an asset we could name in fact: your “third party descriptor”.
And of all your marketing assets, your third party descriptor is your most powerful.
I mean it’s pretty obvious when you think about it. After all, we all know that “word of mouth” is important right? But do you ever consider what the actual words that are coming out of those mouths are? I bet you don’t.
And so how can you be confident they’re putting cash in the bank?
You can’t, unless you take responsibility for arming people with a killer “third party descriptor” – one that is as close as possible to what you yourself would say about your business.
The question is: how?
Now at first glance, this might seem almost impossible. After all, how are we meant to know what other people will say of their own accord?
But it’s actually easier than you think.
To illustrate the point, briefly consider how you would describe the following brands to somebody who had never heard of them:
- Patagonia
- Apple
- Ryanair
- Ralph Lauren
Got it?
Now I bet your descriptor of these brands is pretty damn close to how 90% of other people would describe them. And not only that, I bet it’s also pretty damn close to how they would like to be described. There is a degree of “marketing value” there, no?
OK consider how you would describe these brands:
- Hyundai
- United Airlines
- LG
- Hilton
Do you feel like your descriptors here would match 90% of other people’s? And do you think that the brands in question would be happy with your descriptor? Would they put it on their website? Or in an ad?
Very doubtful.
So what’s the difference?
Some people would say “great branding”, but I think that’s wrong. Or rather their branding is downstream of something more fundamental:
A factual hook.
A hook is obviously a single overriding point of difference that defines the entire brand. And a factual hook simply means that there’s no value judgement at play, and anyone would acknowledge it.
This latter point is very important, because when people are talking about your business, you cannot assume they will be praising it. Instead they will be describing it dispassionately. Perhaps even negatively. So what you are arming them with must be a fact that anyone would concede – not a compliment like “quality”.
Take Patagonia. Pretty much everyone would describe them as “an outdoor clothing brand that is all about saving the environment”. There is no value judgement there, it’s undeniable. That’s just what they are.
Hilton on the other hand might wish to be described as “a superior international hotel brand” or something inane like that. But this isn’t how people talk. Instead they grasp for the laziest and most dispassionate articulation they can think of – which for Hilton might be something like “a big boring hotel chain”. Or even “Paris Hilton’s hotel brand”.
Whatever springs to mind first!
If you don’t give them one big fat hairy fact to latch onto the second they think of you, then their mind is going to wander to all sorts of vague and unflattering shit.
When I think “LG”, I don’t really think anything in particular, so whatever I come up with is going to be pretty feeble right? But when I think Ryanair I can only think ONE thing, and so the margin for error is almost non-existent.
Let me drop another crucial point on you: whatever this descriptor is for you, you cannot dictate the language. Don’t think that whatever you put in your tagline is what people will say. They will not. When people describe Red Bull, they don’t say, “oh, it’s a drink that gives you wings”, because that would make them sound like absolute imbeciles. No, they say “it’s an energy drink that’s all about extreme sports”.
People will describe the facts you arm them with.
Not the language.
If you’re wondering what your third party descriptor is, you can have a decent stab by imagining this scenario:
Picture yourself talking to a stranger in the bar, and trying to describe your company. You start with the official marketing fluff line, and get a blank look. “I don’t get it”, they say. And so you spare the sales pitch and just say “OK basically we just… [insert the most basic descriptor that springs to mind]”.
That’s probably pretty similar to what people say about you. How is it? Does it put you in your best light?
If the answer is no, that simply means you don’t have a strong enough hook.
Or to put it another way: you don’t have a clear, single-minded differentiator.
And where do you get that from?
You got it – strategy.
Yes I’m sorry to tell you that all roads lead back to strategy. Because when you have a clear idea of the unique value you’re going to provide, and have operationalised it with some bold action, then you’re likely to have a hook.
Speaking for myself, so far as I can tell people often describe me as the “no bullshit strategy guy”, or “someone who simplifies strategy”. I have never described myself these ways, but broadly speaking they are close enough – and their consistency implies that I do indeed have a hook that’s easy for people to grab hold of.
That’s what you need.
So what’s yours?
Be honest. Don’t flatter yourself. Think lazy. Think cynical. Think mildly insulting. Think lowest common denominator. Put your business through those filters, and that is what you truly are.
And it’s not too late to change it.
