It Doesn't Matter If It's Food, Fashion, Music, Cars or? Branding is a Science

I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody - Bill Cosby

I had a meeting with a nice gentleman the other day who is working on the branding of his company. I was a bit alarmed at what he said. It was obvious that this person wasn't exactly clear as to what Branding means.

He is in the restaurant industry and said to me,

"We can't be sure the age of our customers or who they are so we can't decide on what kind of food we will serve, we just have to make sure that the food we serve always tastes great."

Well, yes and no. He can't decide what kind of customers he's going to get or their age. That's true... But if he thinks he is making things to please everyone, he certainly can't do that either. He's wrong there. Also, if he's thinking is that his only competition are other restaurants, then he is dead wrong on that issue too. 

I'll explain why in a moment. 

Just like the old adage that Bill Cosby made into his own above, this kind of thinking is a time proven key to failure. It astounds me that to this day, with all the many example around us on why this sort of thinking doesn't work anymore (please think: Apple, Google, famous fashion makers, etc.) When you try to please everyone, you please no one. This is obvious and has been repeated over and over again throughout history since the Industrial Revolution. The serve-all method is a sure-fire way to fail.

Here's why...

The success of corporations like Coca-Cola, Apple, Google and Mercedes Benz, just to name a few; proves that specialization is the key to success in this day and age.

The sushi-ya is good at what they do. "But they can't be sure of the customers or their age!" Should the sushi-ya now add Chinese Food, Hamburgers, Indian Curry, etc. to the menu? Of course not!

There are lessons around us everywhere. Let's look at the restaurant industry for an easy example. Quick name one highly successful and profitable family restaurant? Denny's? Nope. They are rumored to be on the verge of bankruptcy. How about in Japan? What others are there? There's Gusto and Jonathans and Skylark to name a few. All rumored to be nearing bankruptcy. Skylark did go belly up.

How about Royal Host and Sizzler? Well, the Royal Host chain isn't doing well, but is better off financially than Gusto and Jonathans... Why? They own Sizzler in Japan.

Sizzler?! Well, yes, folks, Sizzler is doing well in Japan, thank you. Why? They specialize. They realized years ago that they needed to set themselves apart from the others in their market space. Sizzler is a steak house and its steak meals start at over ¥3,190 a plate! (about $35.77). Sizzler may be considered a family restaurant but they are doing all they can to destroy that image and change to a higher end steak restaurant.

That's Branding. That's smart. That niche marketing.

Branding is doing thorough market research and then focusing on one part of the market.

The example above I gave where the boss said, "We can't be sure the age of our customers so we can't decide on what kind of food we will serve, we just have to make sure that the food we serve always tastes great." He is so completely wrong on that point that it makes me wonder if he has ever bothered to read any books on Branding and Marketing? Or, does he even understand the concept? I don't think so, that sort of thinking is like something out of the 1950s.

Let me get back to that point and prove to you why the other restaurants are not his only competition in this day and age and why trying to please everyone will fail with a simple example.

Imagine: It is your free time, say lunch time. You have one hour. There are so many things for you to do and to choose from on how you spend your one hour. You could go shopping or you could go to the gym, or for a walk, or to a coffee shop. You could go to a book store or meet friends, you could listen to music on your iPod or iPhone or Android or at a record store nearby. You could eat your own homemade lunch or, you could go to a restaurant. The choices are endless.

But, since it is lunch time, and you didn't bring your own lunch, you are hungry. 

In your immediate area there are 5 family restaurants. There's the Denny's, the Skylark, Gusto, Jonathan's or Royal Host... Those restaurants have everything, but I'm sure you'll agree that even though they do have everything, everything is not particularly delicious.

Besides the above, there's also a plethora of choices. There's a McDonalds (Definitely a niche restaurant), a standing soba shop, a delicious sushi restaurant, Chinese food, Indian food, Korean Barbeque, Japanese lunch of baked fish and miso soup, Wendy's, Pizza, etc...

Now, it's not rocket science but most people would go to the specialty shops. 

"How to triple your users and sales by doing just one thing..."

This movement of the market and people's tastes have dictated why this science of Branding is so very important.

Once again, take Apple Store for example. What if they thought that, "...there's all sorts of people who come here of all different ages. We need to please them!" Do you think Apple store would then start carrying Epson printers and ink cartridges? How about printer paper and office supplies? Should Apple start carrying Android phone or old-fashioned cell phones to please the older crowd? See? If one were to stop and think about this for just one second, they'd realize the absurdity of not specializing towards a niche market...

And, I'm sorry, food, music, fashions, etc. are all very broad topics. Anyone who thinks they can't be treated in a scientific fashion for Branding purposes simply just hasn't been paying attention.

For more on the Scientific Method and how Branding is a science, may I recommend: Brands and Brand Management - Contemporary Research Perspectives  

From the publisher review: "Very few books exist that meaningfully integrate the rich and vast body of scientific research and theories that have accumulated in the field, relating to both traditional and contemporary topics in branding. This book accomplishes that task, with contributions from leading experts in the science of branding, national and international. The book should appeal to all students, faculty, and marketing professionals with an interest in research findings about brands, and an interest in deepening their understanding of how consumers view brands."

Thanks to Kevin Riley for the TED link.

Are You a Conformist?

Are you a conformist? I repeat myself. Most people will say that they are not. But most people fool themselves.

Massive group of non-conformist radicals

The US presidential elections are up tomorrow. It is nice that the US presidential elections come out so close to Halloween; they are almost the same: People walking around acting like someone who they are not, asking for handouts. 

First let me tell you who is going to win. It will be the guy that cheats the most. The winner will be the guy who continues the US empire of bombing foreign countries and increasing the welfare state. That will be the winner.

The loser? You the taxpayer.

Now they say that the race between Obamney and Robama is too close to call. I wonder how many people are going to vote just because they want to vote for the winner? You know what I mean? I mean that they don't actually care about the presidency (ask all those disillusioned Obama voters from 2008) but that they now want to vote for whomever they think will win?

Sad state of affairs.

I read a great article by one of my favorite writers, Fred Reed, yesterday. 

From Lew Rockwell: A Surrender of Sorts by Fred Reed 

It is said that democracy depends on an informed public. This is to say that democracy is impossible. In the American case, blank ignorance of anything outside the borders leaves people easily manipulable. The genius of the American political system is that it is not necessary to suppress inconvenient information, but only to keep it off television. So few people will encounter it as not to matter....

The American public believes itself to be free, to have a spirit of rugged individualism, to live in a democracy admired by the world. In fact Americans are not particularly free and becoming less so by the minute, are not individualists but herd consumers formed by a controlled press, and do not live in a democracy.

And totalitarianism comes. This is no longer the assertion of those dropped on their heads as children. Daily we read of more weaponry for the police, more surveillance authorized by courts, more unlegislated powers for Homeland Security. Currency controls fall into place to prevent people from fleeing the country with their assets.

In this direction, I think, lies the future. It is perfectly possible to store every email sent, every purchase made except by cash, every withdrawal of cash; to institute airport-style “security” for trains and buses; to monitor any conversation by telephone; automatically to track cell phones and read license plates and store it all. We are close. We are very close.

Protesting is pointless. No governmental mechanism prevents the headlong progress of things that would have sickened Thomas Jefferson. In the presidential debates neither Candidate A nor Candidate A has said, so far as I know, a word about the tightening watchfulness.

The only reasonable approach is to lie down and enjoy it. Which I shall do.

Fred is 65 or so and lives in Mexico, so he can say these things and I, at 55, can only say, "I envy him." I wish I could lay down and just watch... But I was born 10 or 15 years too late; me, and my peers, have to find a way to survive the next decade or two.

I wonder if we can?

On that note, speaking about people voting for the person that they think is going to win, instead of actually getting informed and voting with knowledge, I think there is something to be said for that. 

Even Seth Godin, in a way, agrees with that notion. He wrote:

One reason that people don't vote (a real, usually unspoken reason) is that they don't want to feel responsible for the person who wins. The other reason is that they don't want to live with the disappointment of voting for someone who loses. 

But, I think Seth's logic is dead wrong. He thinks that you should vote because,

"The magic of voting is that by opting in to the system, you magically begin to count. A lot.

If you don't like negative ads, for example, then vote for the candidate who ran even 1% fewer negative ads. Magically, within a cycle or two, the number of negative ads begins to go down." 

"Magically, within a cycle or two, the number of negative ads begins to go down" he says?! Are you kidding me? Bartender! I'll have what Seth is drinking! What a load of BS! According to the LA Times, negative ads are at the highest pace in history this US  presidential race:

A study by Wesleyan University shows a staggering leap in negative advertising during the 2012 presidential campaign, coinciding with a huge growth in spending by outside groups eager to influence voters.

In a campaign that already has been noted as particularly hostile, the vitriol of the rhetoric so far has reached a seemingly unprecedented level. At this point in 2008, 9% of ads were classified as negative. So far in the current race, 70% of the ads have been negative ads.

Negative ads have been on the increase for a hundred years, Seth! Get back to the real world! It's quite obvious that Seth hasn't been paying attention these last 40 years. He also, obviously, seems ignorant of the "Electoral College" that the US presidential elections use.... Psst! Seth! Popular vote winning presidents have lost elections several times!

Come on, Seth! What a load of crock! You keep writing nonsense like this and you'll lose fans! Absurd!

All Japanese non-conformists have tattoos... I think it's a rule or something... (photo by Toshitaka Taniguchi)

Have you ever heard of the Asch Conformity Experiments? 

They were very famous psychology experiments that were held in the 1950s that showed that people would actually state what they thought was wrong just so that they could fit into the group.

Wikipedia says:

The Asch conformity experiments were a series of laboratory studies published in the 1950s that demonstrated a surprising degree of conformity to a majority opinion. These are also known as the Asch Paradigm.

Watch this and see how powerful "group think" is to the human mind:

When one is to consider how powerful this urge is to be accepted, along with how much TV is viewed by the average American and how little they read books, it paints a dark picture indeed.

Vote Obama the despot! Or Romney the savior! Whatever. History shows us that, no matter who wins, the wars will continue and the bankers will be bailed out - you, the average citizen will pay the bill. Now, perhaps you don't know exactly who will win the US election, but at least you know who is going to lose.

Watch this too on Informational Conformity vs. Normative Conformity:

Thanks to my friend, Bill McKinstry

Today's Economy is Rewarding Ideas, Art, Innovation, Deep-Thinking and Daring… Can You Make the Change?

It couldn't have come at a moment too soon for a world economy faltering (definitely including Japan's too) that the time has come for the economy to start rewarding people for having initiative and new ideas. The time has come for our economy to start rewarding people for results and not process.

The old order of putting in long hours and sacrificing family life for work (and the time for truly living like a real human being and spending time with the family while attending to their needs) is coming to an end. The days of long hours of work in order to be "productive" (or what was confused as "productive") and actually achieving very little have fallen by the wayside. The days of process orientation at work is ending for our societies.


What I mean by that is people are starting to figure out that just sitting at the office and spending time (because everyone else is doing it) is no longer the norm. Working smart and working efficiently so that when you are working you are focused and incredibly productive is the new norm.


Last night, I received this from Seth Godin and really thought that we are on the exact same plane in this way of thinking:

Time doesn’t scale

But bravery does.

The challenge of work-life balance is a relatively new one, and it is an artifact of a world where you get paid for showing up, paid for hours spent, paid for working.

In that world, it's clearly an advantage to have a team that spends more time than the competition. One way to get ahead as a freelancer or a factory worker of any kind (even a consultant at Deloitte) was simply to put in more hours. After all, that made you more productive, if we define productivity as output per dollar spent.

But people have discovered that after hour 24, there are no more hours left. Suddenly, you can't get ahead by outworking the other guy, because both of you are already working as hard as Newtonian physics will permit.

Like I mentioned, the old order of putting in long hours to try to beat the competition are over. Do you really think you can do more and work longer and cheaper than a factory worker in China? Or an illegal immigrant from South America? I've written on this subject before. In that article, a world-famous chef was giving me advice on work and survival of the fittest. Please refer to: Quality Over Quantity, Especially as You Get Older. the chef told me:

"Mike, as you get older, you must always be concerned with these costs, but you must mostly be concerned with having your name associated with quality. When we are young, there are many in our same field of work. But as we get older, the field of people doing our job narrows down to just a few..."

...

"That's is why, Mike, as you get older, you must concentrate on quality and delivering the best. If you decide to concentrate on quantity, you will lose. Because when it comes to a quantity issue, then you start dealing with lower quality... You will not be able to beat a younger competitor... You will not be able to beat a McDonald's."

It is no longer useful, nor should it be acceptable, for someone to be sitting at the office basically watching the clock and accomplishing nothing. THat person needs to break the mold and get outside and see the real world, get real world experiences, see how the real world works and spend time with family to reattach their minds with how normal people live. These workers needs to reattach to what normal people think and what they want. They need to get out of their box.

Several months ago, I was out on a sales call with a salesman in my company. He is a very hard worker and a great salesman. I want to keep him and worry about him as my company does not yet pay him what he worth. When I met him for the sales call he looked completely exhausted. The night before he had been out with clients and didn't arrive home until 3:00 am. That happens a lot for salesmen in Japan. We went to our meeting and, after one hour, it ended. As we walked to the station I asked him where he was then headed. He answered;


"Back to the office."


"Do you have more meetings or urgent matters to attend to?" I asked. He answered in the negative but added,


"I have to go back to the office because everyone is still there."


I told him that it was ridiculous for him to do so and that doing so was actually counterproductive as he'd be still tired tomorrow (in Japanese it's called, 効率が悪い "koritsu warui" - something like results are inefficient"). I told him that we don't do things that way and instead of falling asleep at his desk, I'd prefer that when he is at work he is doing a great job and being efficient. I sent him home.

The new economy - for you and me at least - is not going to be "process oriented" (we won't beat the Chinese and Indonesians for that) but it is going to be "results oriented." Sitting at a desk for 12 hours a day being inefficient is a waste of everyone's time. Using your work time efficiently and effectively is the future - your future.


Doing a good 5 hours of work a day and actually getting something great done beats 14 hours of plodding along.


Can you make the change?

Return of the Coal Industry & Massive Health Problems & Deaths Because of it

Who hasn't heard the proverb, "Be careful of what you wish for, because you just might get it?" 


You might have also heard what Friedrich Nietzsche wrote: "He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster."


Now, after the accident of Fukushima, many people seem desperately to be wishing for a end to nuclear power the world over - forever. I don't. In spite of all its warts, nuclear power is still a young technology that should get better, cleaner and safer as time progresses (if the government gets out of the way) and, as I've written many times, the worst thing that could ever happen to us would be to lose a cheap source of clean energy.

Pinocchio - When You Wish Upon a Star

Anyone who thinks for a moment what the alternatives are - and has a grasp on business concepts like cost effectiveness - would know that the alternatives are not good.


Think what you would do... Think what you will do when your gasoline, heating and energy, and grocery bills go up double or triple in the next five to ten years as the price of oil and energy skyrocket? 


That's what's going to happen without nuclear power...And people are wishing for this? Madness.


In a previous post, I quoted Seth Godin. The post was entitled, For Every One Death Due to Nuclear Power, 4,000 Die Due to Coal. Seth Godin wrote in Triumph of Coal Marketing comparing deaths due to various energy sources compared by terrawatt hour:


For every person killed by nuclear power generation, 4,000 die due to coal, adjusted for the same amount of power produced... 



Seth also links on to another article and chart showing the statistics comparing deaths due to differing energy sources. Interestingly, in one example, even though Solar power accounts for less than 0.1% of world energy and nuclear is 5.9% of world energy, more than ten times more people die annually from Solar power than nuclear power.


The lesson of that post was the fact that people today believing nuclear power is much more dangerous to human health than coal or the oil industry is is a triumph of big business marketing by those coal and oil industries. 


My final comment was: 

When you live in western society and whenever the facts do not bear out what you believe, you can bet your bottom dollar that most probably tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on marketing, advertising and promotion to help create the ideas that you believe. 

It's true. Oil and coal kill many more people worldwide annually than nuclear energy does (and that doesn't include millions of middle eastern men, women and children killed by the west over these last 20 years in order to allow the USA and her western allies to control the oil). Yet people in the west do not protest about the coal industry or oil industry and the wars... But they will lose their diapers over nuclear power.

It is a gross hypocrisy of the west and western people. When will they ever learn that their thoughts are so controlled by the mass media?

CLICK ON IMAGE TO SEE LARGER VIEW

From the Next Big Future:

Air pollution from fossil fuel (coal plants and oil used in cars and trucks) and developing countries burning wood or coal inside their homes are one of the biggest causes of all kinds of death and illness.

Worldwide, indoor smoke from solid fuel combustion causes about 21% of deaths from lower respiratory infections, 35% of deaths from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and about 3% of deaths from lung cancer.

Indoor air pollution from solid fuel use and urban outdoor air pollution are estimated to be responsible for 3.1 million premature deaths worldwide every year and 3.2% of the global burden of disease.

In the year 2004, outdoor air pollution in urban areas was responsible for almost 1.2 million deaths (2% of all deaths) and 0.6% of the global burden of disease. Transportation-related air pollution, which is a significant contributor to total urban air pollution, increases the risks of cardiopulmonary-related deaths and non-allergic respiratory disease. Some evidence supports an association of transportation-related air pollution with increased risks of lung cancer, myocardial infarction, increased inflammatory response and adverse pregnancy outcomes (e.g. premature birth and low birth weight).

Exposure to particulate matter, including metals, has been linked to a range of adverse health outcomes, including modest transient changes in the respiratory tract and impaired pulmonary function, increased risk of symptoms requiring emergency room or hospital treatment, and increased risk of death from cardiovascular and respiratory diseases or lung cancer. Particulate matter is estimated to cause about 8% of deaths from lung cancer, 5% of deaths from cardiopulmonary disease and about 3% of deaths from respiratory infections.

These deaths are directly linked to pollutants in our air, water and food. The biggest contaminant and cause of pollution in our air is directly from the coal or oil industries.

Now, governments of some nations like Germany have promised to phase out nuclear power. What fools. What, pray tell, are their alternative energy sources going to be?

If anyone claims that renewable energy sources can meet our needs by mid-century. Wrong! This just in:

A blunder of staggering proportions by the IPCC

Steve McIntyre has uncovered a blunder on the part of Pachauri and the IPCC that is causing waves of doubt and calls for retooling on both sides of the debate. In a nutshell, the IPCC made yet another inflated claim that:

…80 percent of the world‘s energy supply could be met by renewables by mid-century…

Unfortunately, it has been revealed that this claim is similar to the Himalayan glacier melt by 2035 fiasco, with nothing independent to back it up. Worse, it isn’t the opinion of the IPCC per se, but rather that of Greenpeace. It gets worse.

Steve McIntyre discovered the issue and writes this conclusion:

It is totally unacceptable that IPCC should have had a Greenpeace employee as a Lead Author of the critical Chapter 10, that the Greenpeace employee, as an IPCC Lead Author, should (like Michael Mann and Keith Briffa in comparable situations) have been responsible for assessing his own work and that, with such inadequate and non-independent ‘due diligence’, IPCC should have featured the Greenpeace scenario in its press release on renewables.

Everyone in IPCC WG3 should be terminated and, if the institution is to continue, it should be re-structured from scratch.

Those are strong words from Steve. Read his entire report here.

Well if renewable sources cannot meet our needs, then what's left? Aha! Oil and Coal! Wow! How about that? Who'd a thunk it?

The future of Oil? Wonderful! Not for supply, or for you mundanes who have to buy the stuff to live, but for the oil companies and their shareholders the future looks very bright. Read, Peak oil: 'Nothing to worry about' – but Labour knew the real facts.

That leaves us with coal. Oh yes, What everyone has been wishing for. A return to nature! Coal comes from the earth. It is natural! Besides how Seth Godin showed above that for every person killed by nuclear energy, 4,000 die from coal energy, here's a glimpse of how healthy coal is for you and your kids: The Dangers of Coal-Burning Power Plants.

Everyone screams for an end to nuclear power. They scream that the Japanese government is lying about the situation. They scream that the end is near. And, yet, the fact remains that no one has yet died from the Fukushima nuclear accident. Some claim that tens of thousands will die over the next 20 ~ 30 years due to Fukushima. Oh really? What about actual deaths from fossil fuels? The Yarra Valley Climate Action Group collating data from all over the world have come up with this: 


"0.3 million people die annually world-wide from societally-imposed, fossil fuel-based electricity generation pollutants (carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, particulates, volatile organics and heavy metals, notably mercury) and 170,000 people die annually world-wide from coal burning-based electricity generation..."

Throw in that (about) 333,000 (0.3 million) in with the 170,000 and the 3 million worldwide stated above, and you start showing some real problems with fuel based energy production and pollutants. That's a total of over 3.4 million worldwide last year alone. Deaths from Chernobyl? From the Chernobyl GMN6 (Russian site) these figures that have been hotly debated by both sides: 

30 lives were lost during the accident or within a few months after it. Figures from the Ukraine Radiological Institute suggest that over 2500 deaths were caused by the accident...

Now, the hypocrisy and arrogance of the anti-nuclear crowd (who was also the believers in AGW just a few years ago) is coming to a fore and we're heading down a dangerous path towards economic and environmental ruin. Again, what are you going to do when your fuel, gas and grocery bills begin to skyrocket? What are we going to do without a cheap clean renewable source of energy? Don't look now, but the situation in China will surely have huge ramifications on the rest of the world.

From Gregor.us entitled, "China Coal and the Great Doubling": Back in 2005 it was clear to a number of observers that China’s trailing rate of coal consumption was so strong, that its demand was on course to double by the end of the decade. As of 2010, this is precisely what’s happened. From a jump between 2002-2003, around 850 Mtoe (million tonnes oil equivalent), China is now consuming 1713.5 Mtoe as of last year, according to the BP Statistical Review. | see: China Coal Consumption in Mtoe 2000-2010. 

It only took China 7-8 years to achieve this great doubling. While the sustainability of this rate of growth is certainly in doubt, it bears mentioning that last year a number of global coal producers increased production to help China meet its needs. Indonesia, in particular, raised its production of coal by an almost insane 20% over 2009. Indeed, a number of the regions that I have previously identified as having deep, recoverable reserves raised production in 2010 by substantial margins. The global transition back to coal is fully on course, with a veritable second Age of Coal now on the horizon. 


Yes. Yes. Quite wonderful. The return of the coal based industry and industrial production of coal. Coal and oil use skyrockets just when everyone is screaming for an end to the nuclear industry. China doubles their coal production and use; many nations begin to follow suit. The price of oil continues to rise. 


You know, there was a time when everyone was screaming to use nuclear power in the late 1960's and 70's because the oil and coal industry were ruining the environment.


On a practical sense, the increase in use of coal and increase in price of gas means a huge rise in the cost of living. This also means a return to greatly polluted skies, rivers and oceans. This pollution also means a huge increase in the rates of a variety of cancers, lung disorders and heart diseases. As the use of oil and coal increase, as is proven by history, deaths from these sources will greatly increase. 


This is not conjecture. It is proven by historical record.


It also has an ironic positive note for those with a socialist bent, when prices go way up, consumption goes way down. The thinking goes that, when everyone is poor, this cuts down on pollution - though the record of the old Soviet Union and China don't seem to bear out these ideas.  


You wish for a permanent end to nuclear power? Be careful of what you wish for. For you just might get it.