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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.

Click below to view my interview on Media Talk last week.