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So, another Thanksgiving weekend has come and gone (quickly I might add). I remember my department store days when working the day after was as challenging as my first day of Army basic training…only a lot more exciting. Now that Black Friday has become such a media event, it’s hard t believe that anyone wants to shop that day—especially at 4am or 5am. I was surprised to see that there were people camped out in front of my local Best Buy on WEDNESDAY afternoon just to be first in line for the bargains two days later. So much for a nice family holiday on Thanksgiving Day! The advertising in general over the weekend was non-descript. The two department store competitors (successful ones, that is) Kohl’s and JCPenney literally bombarded the media with more preprint pages and spots than I can remember. More surprising was how identical their print ads were. Almost like they knew what the other was going to do not only the vehicles and style, but also the merchandise and prices. It reminded me of Doner CEO Alan Kalter’s description of the disease plaguing today’s retailers—“emulitis”. Of course, he said this over a decade ago but the copycat strategy is alive and well. Overall, there were more bargain shoppers this past weekend, but they spent less thanks to the continuing decline in prices on flat screen TV’s, mp3 players, and laptops. It will be difficult indeed to achieve even the predicted 2% growth for the holiday selling season.

Now, we are infatuated by Cyber Monday. So all of us who have something better to do than stand in line on Friday (or Wednesday night) can wait and get bargains online by just loggin in on Monday morning. And it seems to work there as well, with significant increases even with retailers who are in a slump (like Circuit City and Sears). The growth on line continues to amaze analysts. Yet, it should be no surprise given the over 80% of consumers who go online prior to visiting a store to make a purchase these days. The integration of the store and online marketing efforts is more critical today than ever. By the way, I “elfed” myself on Office Max’s site (http://elfyourself.com/) and it was as much fun as watching Bob Thacker’s examples of last year’s big success stories. The whole extended family is now dancing in their green costumes this year online.

Now it’s back to reality. With all the effort and spending toward getting the bargain hunters this weekend so we can clear inventory and reduce our margins, isn’t it time for stores to devote a day to making sure that there brand is alive and well…or at least existing? With the exception of Zale’s and Kay Jewelers, I have not seen much effort to do great advertising and give customers a reason to choose your store for any reason other than super values and 75% discounts. What happened to giving the customer a reason to be loyal and have a preference for your store so that you don’t have to wait for the next big sale to give a reason to shop. The print ads that I received from Sam’s Club were the closest thing to holiday advertising that makes you want to visit the store for the merchandise and not just the discount. Great photography, great design and great prices make the store look better than any conventional department store advertising that I reviewed.

In broadcast, it’s pretty much the same. Seldom is there a brand message that positions the retailers as a preferred choice for the holidays. Sure, with the economy, price is as important as ever. But with the amount of competition and the growing lack of shopping time or interest, wouldn’t one want to be the preferred store going in to the weekend and make holiday shopping a special occasion like it once was. I was in Saks a couple days after the Thanksgiving holiday and it seemed like it was no more exciting than a random weekend in July. We blame it on the Internet, or the economy, but we ought to look into the mirror and pick a day to promote our brand to our customers and to our employees so that there is a reason beyond price to come to our stores all year round.

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It seems like it’s the same old story when the monthly retail sales reports come out. The chains that have been doing well (like the new Kohl’s that I just visited) continue to maintain their comp sales growth and the others (like most department stores) can’t figure out what’s happening in the marketplace.

A couple of reports this month pointed out what’s wrong with these stores. It’s the brand, stupid! An article in the New York Times talked about Macy’s strategy backfiring and that the new consolidated brand had forgotten about what made May Co. and Marshall Field’s so successful. It went on to say that the reason customers weren’t going to the stores as much was because there weren’t enough “deals” (as in coupons and promotions) and therefore the customers were opting for other chains (like Kohl’s and Target). CEO Terry Lundgren stated that Macy’s moved “too far, too fast” from the promotions and basic merchandise (like Dockers) that the previous chains built their volume on and that they would have to “backtrack” to get some of those customers back. I don’t think that’s the problem and those customers that only shopped because of a coupon only accelerated the downfall of the previous department stores. Wouldn’t it be much better to give people a reason to shop at your stores other than the “stars” (like Martha Stewart and P Diddy?) have stuff there to sell? The new campaign for the “global Macy’s brand” really fell short in creating any reason to shop there or to expect a better experience than the specialty and discount chains have been offering. Department stores, when they were the heart of retailing, made shopping an exciting experience or at the very least a place for special purchases. As they have expanded and consolidated, there simply is nothing special about the stores. And a discount coupon or loads of 50% off Dockers or Liz Claiborne isn’t really special, particularly when they are always on sale. Who shops for regular price at a department store anyway? I happen to agree with the consolidation of all the former store names under the Macy’s logo. It is a legendary brand with a lot going for it. But all of these stores aren’t on Herald Square and the experience is nothing special. What Macy’s needs to figure out is what the brand should be so that it can have a special relationship (aka a brand) with its new and future customers. Until they define the brand better, all the coupons in the world won’t reverse the downward trend and the disgruntled customers of the former stores.

Another report came out that after 20 years, the Bombay Company’s new owners were abandoning the US and were just going to operate the Canadian stores. I knew the dollar in Canada had grown in value, but not that much! The articles generally stated that Bombay’s demise was due to its (and many other smaller stores’) failure to compete with the big box and larger specialty chains. That may be true but it’s not all a matter of size that matters. For the 20 years, I could never really figure out what Bombay’s reason for being (a key element to a successful brand) was and why anyone would shop there. Sure the stores were neat and the merchandise was nice, but why should I go there? They never developed a brand that was based on the customer and the result was that the chain was always “just there”. Maybe they will do better in Canada, but I am surprised that they lasted as long as they did. There are plenty of smaller sized chains (like Coach, Christopher and Banks, Hollister) that do very well because they have a great brand strategy and they execute it very well in the store, everyday.

Without a great brand strategy, a retailer can blame poor performance on a lot of other reasons (like the weather) but what they really need to do is take a good look inside and find out what they really stand for with the customer and then communicate that more effectively.

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The past several months have been pretty much a wasteland for new creative on the retail advertising front. Not that there haven’t been new spots and new ads on the scene, but nothing has stood out as break-through creative or really spot-on branding.

Recently, however a few campaigns have broken that have caught my attention and, I think, the attention of the consumer as well. Additionally, I think these are examples of campaigns that reinforce the stated brand strategies for these stores. Let’s take a look at three of them.

1. Stein Mart. Always a great off-price alternative to the traditional department stores, Stein-Mart has never really differentiated itself with a strong brand message. As a matter of fact, their advertising, in my opinion, has been a non-entity. Great brand strategy but they kept it a secret. The new campaign, however, from Devito-Verdi, really breaks through with a tongue-n-cheek slam on the main floor piano players that so many department stores think are important.

With the pianist (kind of a Will Farrell look-alike) slamming the competition and their policies that ignore what the customer wants, the spots drive home a positioning that makes a lot of sense to today’s smart shoppers. Stein Mart’s business has not kept up with its former pace in recent months. Maybe now that they are taking their brand proposition to the consumer, more will visit the stores. Check out all the spots at their site at:
http://steinmart.com/

2. Kohl’s. The store has been a real success story and their latest campaign featuring their Vera Wang collections is not just another “we’ve hooked up with a designer” series. The spots are creative, contemporary and drive home the personality of Vera and Kohl’s at the same time. Another example of how these specialty stores have taken a position that has made them favorites with customers in all demographic and psychographic groups with the money and the smarts to know they don’t have to spend too much for good style and quality. The spots from McCann are not just fashion and they certainly are a lot more effective than the new Macy’s spots.
3. Wal-Mart. After more than a year of fumbling around with more problems than just some new creative, the world’s largest store broke its first spots since naming the Martin Agency its new AOR a few months ago. It’s interesting that most of the news around the agency change and the new campaigns focused on the fact that it was time to replace the long-standing smiling happy face “Price roll back” spots. From what is written, one would think this is has been Wal-Mart’s only advertising message for years. In fact, the smiley-face campaign was never the majority of the spots that have run for the store. Spots featuring employees, customers, suppliers, charities, and events were extremely well-done and which built the trust of the customer were one of the big reasons that the company has grown to be the most successful retailer in the world.

The new campaign gets back to building that trust while still driving home the fact that Wal-Mart saves you money for the things in your life that you like to do. They are well-produced and targeted and I think it’s time for the company to focus its messages on building the trust and quality of the company while saving its customers money. (”Save Money. Live Better”) I’m not sure what they changed with the media plan, but I used to be hit by at least 4-5 messages a week (and I’m not a high television watcher) and now I have only seen these spots in advertising trade publications and video links. Maybe that’s why the performance has been so poor the past several months. You can check it out in Bob Garfield’s column at www.adage.com.

I’ve said many times that retailers tend to think that branding is nothing more than coming up with a new ad campaign and then wonder why nothing happens with the consumer. In these cases, the positioning is right, the stores get it, and the message is creatively succinct.

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There isn’t a company in the world today that doesn’t emphasize the importance of customer service. Their annual reports always focus on their commitment (and the commitment of their outstanding associates) to meeting the needs of their customers. Their mission statements, while generally hard to understand, somehow insures that customer service (usually in some other ubiquitous terms) is an important part of the company’s vision.

This week, the New York Stock Exchange released its third annual survey of CEO’s from around the world. It wasn’t surprising that these company leaders believe that meeting and exceeding customer expectations is the key to driving sustainable growth in the future. The survey, as reported in USA Today, said that with so much product (and store) parity it was customer service that could be the key differentiator in the marketplace. Sounds like branding to me! The CEO’s also said that they would budget more dollars for customer relationship management in 2008 to reflect that they are serious about serving the customer. This made me wonder if they were as committed to building and strengthening their brands at the same time. If providing great customer service is exceeding customer expectations at the store, and if branding’s job is defining those expectations, then, why do so many companies feel that customer service and branding are two separate functions? Why do HR and Operations determine the service standards and how to implement them while Marketing is charged with developing a brand strategy that will communicate to the customer what to expect when they come to the store? In fact, everyone should work together to insure that the service standards and the brand promises are in synch with each other.

We see so many fast food retailers put a sign up on their marquees or in their windows saying “Now Hiring, Smiling Faces”. Sure we all would rather a smiling face on the other side of the counter or drive-thru window, but what we really want is someone who will get our order right, get it to us fast, and all the time speak a language we can understand. Efficiency is a lot more important in this industry than a gleeful employee (to the customer that is), Looking at last month’s retail sales results, I noted that the stores that did well in an otherwise slow month, were those who are doing a great job with their brands and exceeding customer expectations at the same time.
Stores like Costco (+7.0% comps), Target (+6.1), JCPenney (+11.0) and Nordstrom (+9.4) all have great brands, and they all provide different levels of customer service. But these levels are consistent to what they are promising to their customers via their brand strategy. Costco provides a different level of service than Whole Foods even though they are in similar businesses. Nordstrom promises more service when they sell a pair of shoes than does Payless. JCPenney has gone very promotional, yet still offers a better experience than most department stores out there.

It’s proof once again that when the brand strategy is developed, all of the departments must agree to it and make sure that they live up to it. “Customer Relationship Management” is popular today and a lot of money is being spent to keep existing customers and geting them to spend more. Don’t make it harder than it is. Branding is about the relationship with the customer and it starts with providing customer service that consistently meets or exceeds our marketing promises

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Back when I was SVP-Marketing and Branding at PetSmart, one of the keys to our strategy was identifying the “Truth and The Heart” of the brand. Our agency, Publicis USA, had developed “Truth and The Heart” and maintained—and I agreed—that you first develop the “Truth” or the hard facts of what the brand was (things like number of stores, categories, prices, displays, programs, etc) in order to define your points of differentiation. Once these facts were established, then it was critical to identify and develop “The Heart” of the brand—those emotional reasons for shopping the store, whether it was caring associates, programs like pet adoptions, easy refunds, personal communications, professional vets or trainers, in order to build a true relationship with our customer. And if you have no relationship with them, then you really don’t have a brand that will succeed.

This all came back to me while attending the National Speakers Association Annual Convention in San Diego this week. Speaker after speaker zeroed in on this past year’s theme by emphasizing that to be an effective communicator who has an impact on his/her audience, you had to have differentiating substance to what your topics, your target audience, and your calls to action would be; what is it that separates you from the thousands of others on the platforms at the many meetings and conferences held each year? To that end, I have focused my presentations this year specifically on the importance of getting people on the floor and throughout the organization to live up to the brand in everything they do on the job. Unless we achieve totalbrandintegration® in making sure our culture reflects the brand strategy we are communicating to our customers, there is little chance for long-term success.

The most important ingredient for this brand culture is to develop a “soul” in our people that truly makes this a way of life as they service our customers. For years, Southwest Airlines has been known not only as the country’s most successful airline but as the airline whose people personify its brand. As their COO said not long ago, “We are a company in the customer service business who happens to fly airplanes.” No question where Herb Kelleher put the soul and substance in his company.

While I was in Juneau, Alaska, a couple weeks ago, we decided to take the city bus out to Mendenhall Glacier for the day. As I waited, a young man named William spotted that I was wearing a Cox Broadcasting fleece vest and struck up a conversation. He was thinking that I might have an opportunity for him in television. I quickly clarified that it was a free-bee, but he was really interested in marketing and the future of big companies in the US. While he was a musician, he asked some relevant questions about my thoughts on whether all of the consolidations, buyouts, and venture capital takeovers would reduce the competitive market so much that there would be no innovation and no excitement in consumer marketing. Thinking about it, I assured him that there was still plenty of competition and plenty of good marketing—if we maintain branding as the soul and substance of our stores, products, or services. Having recently worked for some venture capital investors, I was made aware of the importance of cash flow and making the sales numbers. I’m afraid sometimes we forget that it is the “soul” of the business and the way our people relate to the customer that really makes the difference. William asked the right questions, and as I watched the glacier “calve” in many pieces, I thought how many chains are also falling apart because they miss the two most important ingredients that make a lasting contract with their customers.

Last week, I spoke to a Brand Management class of MBA students at the University of South Florida where we had a lively discussion about how long it takes for branding to work. I had stated in my presentation that many companies, especially retailers, fail to establish their brands because they are looking for immediate results (sales) as soon as they start their marketing efforts behind the brand strategy. So often what happens is that the company or store will spend months with consultants and/or agencies. developing a strategy within the organization Then they will budget an aggressive amount of advertising and marketing funds to launch the new strategy, much of which is upfront to “really hit the ground running”. After a couple months or so, they are quick to pull the plug—or at least go into hibernation marketing-wise—because they are not seeing an immediate return on their advertising investment.

This sort of reminds me of the 15-minute dating services that you may have seen on some of the news magazine programs recently. You know, this is where about 15 single guys and 15 single ladies sign up for a night of a dating blitz where they each get 15 minutes at a table together, then the bell goes off and they all scatter (like musical chairs participants) to another table and another Mr. or Ms. Right and start all over again. They do this all night and then hope that they get a subsequent, more quality, date with the one they liked best. One thing is for sure, these are not relationship workshops. “Whiz bam, thank you Ma’am” is more like it. Retailers today think about marketing and branding in the same way. Build a multi-media campaign, blitz the airways over a few weeks and then watch the customers pour in with their cash to make a purchase and, of course, become loyal shoppers who want to sign up immediately for your CRM card and carefully thought-out e-mailings targeted for their need and likes.

Well, as I told the students that night, it just doesn’t work that way. Branding is building a meaningful relationship with your customers and potential customers. And it just doesn’t happen in a couple 30-second or 16-page by-chance encounters. It takes time and it takes consistency for the relationship to develop. It also takes internal development (kind of like getting the right clothes or make-up for that dating session) to ensure that the organization understands what kind of relationship you expect them to have with the customer. Some of the most successful brands have kept the same brand strategy, with revisions to keep up with the times and changing competition, for many years to insure a loyal customer base and relationship. Sure the communications have to be freshened up with new messages and new creative, but the strategy (if sound) must be nurtured in all aspects of the business if you want to keep a positive relationship with the customer.

Daniel Burrus, CEO of Burrus Research, spoke recently at the Global Retail Marketing Summit in St. Petersburg, FL about the importance of building a relationship. In fact, he said, “The future is all about Relationships.” The key he said was to enhance TRUST with your customers if you are going to succeed. We have to “de-commoditize” continuously if we are going to stay ahead of the competition by constantly exceeding customer expectations. The importance of keeping at it everlastingly (as N.W. Ayer once said) will strengthen our brands and keep the entire organization on track.

As I get ready to go to Alaska for two weeks of relationship building with my wife, Sandi (and to celebrate our 40th Anniversary), I am more convinced than ever that to build a brand or a relationship, one must be committed to it, have a passion for it, and work hard at it…everyday.