Tuesday 24 January 2012

The Brand Battle of the Sexes

So Lynx launches a female product – does this mean that feminism has finally run its course. Well maybe not, but it has certainly generated a lot of interest in the marketing community. One could argue that in our “lady to ladette” culture, it is surprising that it has taken so long for a brand which is all about youthful sexual attraction to extend its reach to women. But the more interesting questions are: whether this necessarily represents a game changer for the sector? Does it swing both ways – can female brands crossover to men, especially as the male grooming category has grown by adopting traditionally feminine products and behaviours? And are there any implications for other gendered categories and brands?

The rise of the unisex fragrance sector in recent years has shown, particularly in the bathroom, that the boundaries between the genders are beginning to blur. The impact of programmes like The Only Way Is Essex on crossing over grooming and tanning products from the women's to the men's markets had underpinned the success of the sector. However, this has largely been on the back of discernibly male brands developing new products, rather than established female-friendly brands breaking into the men's market.

Developing cross gender brands, though, is nothing new. It is something that Levi's has successfully done in the jeans market and Gillette has achieved with razors, though both are examples, like Lynx, of a male brand being adapted to target a female audience. There are fewer examples of it working as successfully the other way around. Unilever’s other global personal care brand phenomenon, Dove, has arguably made the move from female to male, especially given its assertively female positioning, with the male equivalent Men+Care successfully launched a couple of years ago. However before the Campaign for Real Beauty came along, Dove was a more gender neutral soap and its challenging of gender stereotyping has also made it something of a post-gendered brand.

It is interesting that this is a lack of female to male brand extension, whilst products freely travel, suggesting that there is something insecure in men’s psyche which makes “appearing female” far less acceptable than women adopting some male traits. This despite years of the apparent “feminising” of traditional masculinity (male grooming, male parenting, male emoting...). So it seems that it would take a brave brand to make that particular play. So where do we see more gender ambiguity in branding?

Chanel, widely perceived as a predominantly female brand, has had success winning men over to its range of watches, but less so to its core fragrance products. Success seems to come most readily at the luxury end of the market, where there is less of an obvious demarcation between male and female product use than elsewhere. Brands like Hugo Boss, Louis Vuitton, Chanel and Cartier seem to say more about the user's status and success than they do about their gender and this seems to override any gender sensitivities.

Some companies have succeeded in developing genuinely unisex brands, most obviously in the fragrance market, whilst others, like the watchmaker Swatch, have developed as distinctly gender-neutral brands. Perhaps the future lies in this continued development of androgynous brands, like Calvin Klein, which will challenge established brand demarcations head on, both in product design and brand positioning, and may well win.

So what might this tell us about other gendered categories : cars, media, clothing, technology...Lynx’s move must question the assumption that brands targeted largely at men OR women are basing their gender bias on functional needs, historical precedence, even the idea of psychological pre-disposition (which seems to have become fashionable again as the nature nurture debate lurches back towards “nature” in matters of gender). So will we see hitherto staunchly “male” brands such as Yorkie following Lynx and targeting a female audience and, hopefully, classically “female” brands like Comfort successfully targeting men. Then surely the post gendered brand world will have arrived.

Wednesday 11 January 2012

Celebrity Brand Match

Using celebrities to advertise products is nothing new. Even before Hollywood legends Rita Hayworth and John Wayne took up the challenge of promoting Tru-Color Lipstick and Camel cigarettes respectively in the 1940s and 1950s, brands had recognised the allure of being associated with the idols of the day.

So this week’s news that chocolate bar Snickers is replacing A-Team hero Mr T with former Dynasty sirens Joan Collins and Stephanie Beacham shouldn’t be that much of a news story. Except it raised eyebrows in our office and nobody I have spoken to since can see an overt Joan Collins – Snickers connection. But we also remembered that some initially arresting associations turn out rather well (John Lydon with Country Life); and some which look solid gold (Tiger Woods and Gillette) can become somewhat tarnished.

Is the use of Joan Collins an example not of direct “endorsement” or association, but of the way that some brands are abandoning the traditional view of needing a celebrity that has an obvious brand fit in favour of one that offers talkability? Or is the brand merely continuing to tap in to the prevailing mood of 80s nostalgia providing a warm feeling from the past as we contemplate a somewhat chilly immediate future ! Time will tell when we see the campaign.

Whilst ad agencies might be nervous of the role of research in such “irrational” celebrity associations, we think that good research should be key. It can be fundamental to understanding how to maximise the value of this style of campaign and can explore irrational appeal of an apparently unconnected character, as in this case, as well as the more straightforward fit of an obvious celebrity link (Parky with over 50s life assurance for example). Ensuring that you bring on board the right ‘face’ (one which can resonate with your target audiences whether rationally or irrationally) as well as getting the tone and humour content of the campaign is essential and research will help here.

We can only presume that research has been undertaken that shows Joan Collins works – in the context of this campaign - for Snickers’ target audiences. Although an older celebrity like Joan Collins significantly reduces the risk of tying your campaign up with a one hit wonder, none of that is beneficial if it doesn’t achieve the desired cut-through and again good research which “gets” the creative idea can help here.

The choice to link Snickers with Mr T was clearly well researched. Not only was he retro and identifiable to those of us of a certain age, he was also cool to a younger generation through a resurgent interest in The A-Team on the back of the Hollywood remake of the television series. It remains to be seen how well Joan Collins will straddle these various demographics.

Wednesday 4 January 2012

Can brands feel consumers’ pain?

A report by the housing charity, Shelter, this week has confirmed that almost one million Britons have taken out an emergency ‘payday’ loan to help pay their rent or mortgage in the last year. In addition, the charity also reported that seven million Britons – that’s 10 per cent of the population - are relying on some form of credit to help pay their housing costs.

With so much of the population under such fundamental financial pressure this situation necessarily has implications for brands.

Consumers will likely be more vigilant and more eagle-eyed than ever and are likely to be not only rationally searching for the best bargains but will be willing to put more effort into securing them. They will also be looking for emotional pay offs: higher level benefits such as “doing the right thing”, “being responsible” etc as well as more basic “animal” drivers such as “competing for scarce resources”, “protecting your family” etc. It will be interesting to see how people’s well developed need to be part of herd and community plays out against this background.

Whilst brands might be tempted to introduce “value” variants of their best loved products we would caution against straying too far from accepted brand values and setting the brand up for a later fall. Brands could more fruitfully consider greater innovation in promotional strategy (we have seen iterations of this with retailer schemes such as Asda’s “Price Guarantee” and Sainsbury’s “Brand Match”). They could do this by applying product innovation research techniques to create, develop and test truly innovative new value/promotional ideas rather than relying on the classic well-trodden path. Larger, global brands may even look to see what has worked for them in less well off, emerging markets to see whether messaging or products for ‘poorer’ consumers might be transferable.

In this sense, there is also a communications role here for brands. They, a little like MPs during this period of austerity, could do worse than to try and look like they are feeling the pain too. It’s tricky to pull off authentically but can cement the relationship with your customer base if you can do so.

As much as there may be temptation for brands to set themselves up to operate within a recession, they often forget to plan for leaving a recession. Launching value brands might bring some dividend now but longer term could damage their positioning if it they operate in a more premium segment. Own Label will by default boom right now, and may be the trick for brands and retailers alike is to promote ‘the game’ of saving money with rewards who can shop savvy whilst still retaining the brands to which they are emotionally and behaviourally are too strongly connected. Who can be the first supermarket to genuinely reward consumers by spending less or buying more efficiently? It is something energy companies have tried in the past – rewards for being more energy efficient. Let’s try rewards for being more shopping efficient.

Brands will need to work harder to put themselves in a position that they do not become the ‘dropped brand’ so that when the inevitable exit from recession arrives they are, from a value perception, in the right place for their brand. In a current economic climate dominated by us having to ‘make do’ with a raft of bland value brands, there will always be a place for more premium products that we aspire to, those brands have to work harder though to keep those emotional ties both through maintaining their position but without appearing to be out of touch with the financial reality people face.