The Power of Branding
I related this story twice over the last week, so I thought I'd write briefly about this. Most of my closest friends have actually heard of where I work - Accenture. But, I still encounter maybe about 50% hit-miss ratio with new people I meet who are not directly in the industry. For many years, even my parents have little idea what I do for a living, and I never did try to explain. So here are a few funny stories and also how powerful branding can be :

The first was a month or so back when I renewed my gym membership with Sweat Club, now Jackie Chan California Fitness. There are actually two stories here - one was that they had a bunch of very friendly staff who tried to sell me many forms of renewal. When we finally agreed to something, I handed him my business card to simplify his registration. The next time I met with the guy again, to close off the discussion, he asked me whether I worked with a hair salon! I was actually very amused, also wondering why he would think so... he said, "Your business card look like one of those from a hair salon, and it does not say what your company do". Very very true.. such is the sometimes frustrating thing about working for a consulting company - everything is vague, from the company logo, designation and perhaps as some clients think, even the services!

However, one of the most prominent logos for us in the recent years must be the Tiger Woods campaign. We are strongly affiliated with the Tiger Woods brand for high performance delivery. It worked well initially and went to a bit of a slump when Tiger had his slump, but luckily he recovered. He is indeed my ideal of a winner - he is above and beyond all other golfers, even during a slump period, he could come up with amazing winners. Best of all, he is passionate about winning - seeing him win the Masters is indeed the most amazing feat. Our tie-in with Tiger is reflected in our logo - Go on, Be a Tiger. This was not very well known, and as one of my vendors said, he always sees it at airports, where we target business travellers. The funniest incident happened a few weeks back. I was running for this Shah Alam 10km race, and at one point a bit tired of the ups and downs and actually slowed down significantly almost to a walking pace for a short distance. There was this 50 something 'uncle' who actually shuffled/run up to me and called "Don't stop Tiger!". This surprised me somewhat until I realised I was wearing a cap with the company logo at the back, however that still surprised me a bit, as not many people know the correlation. I was not sure whether I was actually day-dreaming or had actually heard him say that, anyhow I related that to my marketing manager later, and she was so pleased, it made her day! Also, the 'uncle' made me run faster! (how to not do that when I am suddenly associated with high performance!)

If you ask me what is the strongest brand around, I have to say it would be Nike - the swoosh sign and the "Just Do It". This is both simple and relevant. Good branding means easy to remember, long lasting associations and ability to relate to everyone, even the man on the street. The other one I can relate to well, but is not too strong globally is Toyota. For some time ago, there had been an advertisement with the motto "A Toyota Never Breaks Down". Till now, I recall that line, especially when I relate to others why I still like to drive my Toyota, even if the car is old already!

For more interesting pictures of the great Tiger Woods campaign, see the link below :
http://www.accenture.com/xd/xd.asp?it=enweb&xd=aboutus\advertising\ad_print.xml

I still believe it to be a rumor that how we paid Tiger was to help him with his website. Unbelievable for a man with a 1Million USD appearance fee... one day I will find the truth!