Richard Bliss Blog

Owning a word - Dodge vs Hyundai

I often speak about the power of owning a word. Own a word, the right word, and it can carry your brand to financial success.

Two car companies show a stark contrast to the success or failure of following this rule. Let's use Dodge and Hyundai as two examples. Both companies, like all car companies, have struggled in the recession. Dodge is the established brand, a brand from the past that stood for muscle cars and power. Hyundai is a newcomer, having struggled to get their brand established.

That was the past. How the future has changed. Let's take a look at how Dodge has responded to the crisis and their new ads around their Dodge Caravan line.

Word on the web for this ad - BORING.

Not only boring but it leaves you wondering what is the point and who is the audience.

There is little reinforcement of the brand, other than attempting to convince those watching that a minivan is manly. Sorry, no matter how many times you say that in an ad, your audience isn't going to buy it, figuratively or literally.

Next is Hyundai, who's ads in the past were scattered and insulting with their DUH campaign. Someone has wised up and changed their tune. Take a look.

What is the Hyundai Assurance? It was an offer that stunned the car industry and put the Hyundai brand in front of nearly every American. The Assurance is a promise to take back your car if you lose your job.

Dodge Attempt

Lately Dodge has attempted their own return policy marketing plan, but it is so bad it is causing the exact opposite response that is intended.

The ad, which I can't find a copy of on the web but watched last night during the NBA playoffs, goes something like this.

Same shot of the Caravan. Voice over says:

"You have 60 days to decide if you want to keep the car"

"If you aren't happy you can return it"

"Who needs 60 days to decide? Just look at it"

The unspoken message here, especially with the line, "Who needs 60 days to decide?" screams "DON'T BUY ME" "YOU MAY NOT LIKE ME AND WANT TO BRING ME BACK" "SAVE YOURSELF THE HASSLE AND MAKE THE DECISION NOW. DON'T BUY ME"

I was shocked at the fumbling nature of this ad in its attempt to instill confidence in the buying public but instead simply shoot themselves.

Hyundai Goes Viral

Hyundai now completely owns the word Assurance. The public may not know the details about what you have to do to take your car back, but the message has come through. Hyundai is watching out for you and gives you Assurance. They make you feel safe.

You know a message works when others begin using it in your favor. Take a watch on the following video. The public understands the Hyundai message.

WARNING - This video contains offensive language and images.

Hyundai Assurance Commercial - watch more funny videos

If you are going to judge a car company by its ads, then Dodge is dead and Hyundai is the one to watch.

Own a word and you own the world.

Sticking to the story with owning a word

First, I was wrong. A few blog posts ago I mentioned that I thought John McCain's campaign was slow to come up with a word to own, slow to find a central theme, and that their new theme, Original Maverick, while good, may have been too late.

I was wrong. McCain completely made up for lost time.

To own a word and keep owning it you have to tell a story that reinforces the word. Stories fill in the blanks and voids that surround a word.

With the word, Maverick, McCain was going to have to show that his actions matched his story. And with his selection of Sarah Palin, he totally reinforced the word and position. It doesn't matter whether you agree or disagree with McCain's decision. What you have to agree with is that his decision reinforced his position. It continued the story of maverick.

Depositioning - Changing the meaning of someone else's word

Remember Hillary's strategy? It was to own the word "Experience". She did a good job, but then along came Obama and he used the word Change to deposition the word "Experience" to mean something different than what Hillary was attempting to say it meant. Obama made Experience come to mean "Same Old Thing".

But then a funny thing happened on the way to the election. Obama lost the strength of his story.
When it came time for him to make his first executive decision and demonstrate what his version of "Change" meant, he chose Joe Biden, a long time Washington player and co-Senator. His choice was probably a smart move for the strength of his ticket, but it was a bad decision to reinforce his campaign and ownership word. His actions didn't match his word. Biden did not reinforce the word "Change"

Now McCain has done to the word "Change" what Obama did to the word "Experience". McCain, rather than attempting to steal the word Change which is still easily owned by Obama, picked the word Reform to augment his Maverick word, and now McCain's Reform story is getting better traction than Obama's Change.

Changing a word

I have been seeing the signs at the Obama events. They used to be the word "Change" without explanation. Now they are "Road to Change" or "Ready to Change". McCain has successfully redefined Obama's meaning of the word Change and now the Obama camp is attempting to explain what the word means, when before they didn't need to explain it at all.

Whoever can tell the better story is going to win this. Obama has a smart campaign team, they should be able to get back on story. McCain has a tendency to not understand how to stay on message, which means he could still squander this momentum.

It is all coming down to owning a word and telling a story

Sticking to the story with owning a word

First, I was wrong. A few blog posts ago I mentioned that I thought John McCain's campaign was slow to come up with a word to own, slow to find a central theme, and that their new theme, Original Maverick, while good, may have been too late.

I was wrong. McCain completely made up for lost time.

To own a word and keep owning it you have to tell a story that reinforces the word. Stories fill in the blanks and voids that surround a word.

With the word, Maverick, McCain was going to have to show that his actions matched his story. And with his selection of Sarah Palin, he totally reinforced the word and position. It doesn't matter whether you agree or disagree with McCain's decision. What you have to agree with is that his decision reinforced his position. It continued the story of maverick.

Depositioning - Changing the meaning of someone else's word

Remember Hillary's strategy? It was to own the word "Experience". She did a good job, but then along came Obama and he used the word Change to deposition the word "Experience" to mean something different than what Hillary was attempting to say it meant. Obama made Experience come to mean "Same Old Thing".

But then a funny thing happened on the way to the election. Obama lost the strength of his story.
When it came time for him to make his first executive decision and demonstrate what his version of "Change" meant, he chose Joe Biden, a long time Washington player and co-Senator. His choice was probably a smart move for the strength of his ticket, but it was a bad decision to reinforce his campaign and ownership word. His actions didn't match his word. Biden did not reinforce the word "Change"

Now McCain has done to the word "Change" what Obama did to the word "Experience". McCain, rather than attempting to steal the word Change which is still easily owned by Obama, picked the word Reform to augment his Maverick word, and now McCain's Reform story is getting better traction than Obama's Change.

Changing a word

I have been seeing the signs at the Obama events. They used to be the word "Change" without explanation. Now they are "Road to Change" or "Ready to Change". McCain has successfully redefined Obama's meaning of the word Change and now the Obama camp is attempting to explain what the word means, when before they didn't need to explain it at all.

Whoever can tell the better story is going to win this. Obama has a smart campaign team, they should be able to get back on story. McCain has a tendency to not understand how to stay on message, which means he could still squander this momentum.

It is all coming down to owning a word and telling a story

Original Maverick - Owning the right word

It isn't perfect but it is a vast improvement for the McCain campaign. Their new message, "Original Maverick" is starting to hit the right tone and message.

This, after a disastrous attempt by the McCain campaign to convince the American public that Obama is extremely popular and that is a bad thing. Running ads with Obama's face all over the screen, with massive crowds chanting, "Obama, Obama" and then attempting to slip in a little dig that McCain is better because he is not popular.

One viewer of the Olympics mentioned to me that as they used Tivo to scim the ads, they thought they just kept seeming Obama ads, not evening getting to see McCain in his own ad.

Owning a word

In marketing, to capture the attention of your intended audience you must own a word in the minds of those people who you wish to hear and remember your message.

Obama owns the word Change. All the candidates have attempted to take this word away from Obama, either by using it themselves or by dismissing it as unimportant. They have all failed. Obama owns this word outright.

McCain, up until this point has owned the word Old. He hasn't wanted to own the word, but that isn't the way it works. He has continued to reinforce his ownership of this word and the examples are too extensive to mention here.

A new word for McCain

But now the McCain campaign has hit upon a new word combination. Original Maverick. The word Original has a similar meaning to the world old. Afterall, the Coke brand is old but it successfully uses Original or Real as a replacement for old.

McCain, by claiming to be the original, can use his experience and age as an advantage. Maverick can be a good word as well. It speaks of someone who leads with strength of inner conviction and not swayed by peer pressure. There are dangers in this word as well. A maverick is also seen as a contrarian. Somewho who isn't a team player, someone who doesn't work well with others.

Telling a story

In order for The Original Maverick to work for McCain, he has to step up and tell us a story that convinces us that he deserves to own this word. I have heard so many times McCain state that the American public knows him and knows his position. Sorry Mr McCain, but most Americans pay very little attention to most senators and their perceived accomplishments while sitting around with the other 99 senators. Americans don't know you and that is part of the problem.

So tell us a story. Tell us how you are a maverick. We understand the 'original' part, we want to know about the maverick part. Other than the Iraq war, which Americans do know your views, where else have you stepped up, stood out, and been right. Where have you bucked the conventional wisdom, gone out a limb, and then been proven right.

You are a republican, so being opposed to their ideas won't give you street cred as a maverick. We want to know where you were when controversial republican items were being passed and we especially want to know why you failed to prevent them from passing if you are such a maverick and a great leader. There is a great chance for McCain to show how he has failed to influence and sway his fellow legislators.

Too little, too late

I'm still predicting that the republicans took too long to figure this out. And their delay has provided Obama with a lead that isn't showing up in the polls yet. Once the Olympics are over and people turn in earnest to politics, the runway is just to short for the big heavy McCain campaign plane to finally get off the ground.

USA Today agrees with Richard Bliss

I have often spoke of the need to own a word and the power that comes from owning the right word in a market. I have also written and spoken at times about the current presidential race and how each candidate is finding a word to own and how they are being associated with their word.

Yesterday, in USA Today, there was a short article on page 5A. I have looked for it online without success, but will reprint it here without permission. USA Today is stating EXACTLY what I have been saying for the past 6 months.

The Candidates, in a word

When asked what words come to mind when they think about the major presidential contenders, more people say "old" about Republican John McCain, 71, than any other word. For Democrat Barack Obama, 46, "change" comes to mind quickly.

Those are among the results of an Associated Press-Yahoo News survey released Monday.

The poll was conducted over the Internet by Knowledge Networks, which initially contacted people using traditional telephone polling methods and followed with online interviews.

In my keynote in January I conducted a similar poll of the 400 attendees at GWAVACon. And the answers were identical.

As I watch the campaign from a marketing perspective, I see each person reinforcing their word, reinforcing the way people already think about them.

Here are two examples:

I listened to an interview of John McCain the other day and the interviewer asked Senator McCain about Obama's claim that a McCain election would simply be George Bush's Third Term.

McCain, in an attempt to deflect and be funny, said, "Obama will be Jimmy Carter's Second Term"

This may seem harmless, but for someone watching this, it reinforces the perception.

Jimmy Carter was elected President in 1976. Many of the new generation of voters who are turning out in record numbers WEREN'T EVEN BORN YET when Jimmy Carter was elected 32 years ago. It would be like quoting Eisenhower or Truman or Lyndon B Johnson. True that Carter is still alive, but many of the new voters that McCain is attempting to woo don't remember Jimmy Carter as a president. It makes McCain seem old and from a bygone era.

Second, visit John McCain's website. There is a video game you can play on the website called Pork Invaders. It is designed to remind you that John McCain will restore fiscal responsibility to the government.

Space Invaders came out in the early early 80s, nearly 30 years ago. A subtle reminder that McCain is from a generation long long ago.

I'm the same age as Barack Obama. I'm a fairly confident person and would like to believe, that if given the shot, I could make better decisions that some of the mess we find ourselves in right now. I would like to think that other people my age feel the same, that the hard decisions aren't being made.

But, I have a tough time believing that my aging parents in their 70s could step up and fix the country.

The age issue will keep growing, and Obama's ownership of the word "Change" is the perfect marketing foil.

Sticks and Stones Will Break My Bones But Words Can Kill My Product

Stick and Stones will break my bones
But words will never hurt me

This is a children's rhyme that we all remember taught to us by our mothers. It was a defense against the terrible mean things kids say to each other.

We all know it isn't true. Words, much more than sticks and stones, truly have the power to hurt us. and to keep hurting us over the years.

My blog has consistently talked about owning a word and the importance of owning the right word.

Sometimes NOT owning a word, or not being associated with a word can be just as devastating.

GroupWise and BlackBerry

Back in 2001 when I joined Novell to head up GroupWise marketing, I had a problem. Actually I had a very large number of problems, but I'm only going to focus on one of them for this blog posting.

The problem was that Research in Motion, the makers of BlackBerry Smartphones, was extremely popular with a large segment of my customer base, namely law firms. Lawyers were the first large segment of users to adopt the BlackBerry phone and to begin spreading its popularity.

But, word on the street was that GroupWise didn't work with BlackBerry. Law firms began dumping GroupWise for Exchange because they perceived that they needed Exchange to get their phones to work.

The truth and perception are often at odds with each other. In this case, there was a problem with the wording.

In 2001, RIM had a service called BlackBerry. It was a BlackBerry Enterprise Server and the BlackBerry Network. The phones and devices themselves were not called BlackBerrys, they were called RIM devices.

GroupWise worked fine with RIM devices. Using a myriad of 3rd party applications, almost any RIM device could be linked up with GroupWise to provide a solution.

The problem was with the word, BlackBerry. GroupWise didn't work with BlackBerry, since BlackBerry was a service and not a thing. GroupWise worked with RIM.

I found myself in a dilemma on how to promote the use of a RIM devices with GroupWise to staunch the attrition of customers moving away from GroupWise.

One partner came forward with a solution that I could talk about. Consilient had developed a connector that allowed a BlackBerry Enterprise Server and Service to work with GroupWise. I could now claim that through Consilient, GroupWise worked with BlackBerry.

Not only could I claim it, I did claim it. I began announcing that BlackBerry was now available. I had to promote Consilient but it worked.

The problem was that Consilient made it work by wrapping their solution around a Microsoft Exchange Server. That meant a GroupWise customer would need to install Exchange to get their BlackBerry to work with GroupWise.

That was not a popular idea. I took a lot of heat for that decision. A decision that still rankles those that remember it.

But I stand by my decision. Consilient didn't sell that much product to my customers. Once someone began seriously investigating, they realized that Consilient wouldn't work for them, but they also realized that the many other 3rd party partners at the time would work just fine.

I opened up the conversation so that the word BlackBerry could be associated with GroupWise, thereby increasing the exposure of ALL of my partners and keeping the opposition for depositioning my product.

Over time, RIM, realizing that BlackBerry was a more powerful brand than RIM, changed all their device names to be called BlackBerry Smartphones. Once they did that, the problem went away. Now, any solution that allowed a BlackBerry phone to connect to GroupWise didn't have to be worded differently.


Next Post
GroupWise and iPhone

Novell - Mission Accomplished?

Marketing is all about the message. It is about getting inside the head of your prospect and owning a word. There are good words to own and there are bad words to own.

Good words to own:

Safety - Volvo owns that one

Hybrid - Toyota is on top with that one

Change - Obama. He owns that word so well he even has his opponents using it.

Bad words to own:

Virus - Microsoft will have to work for years to lose the ownership of that word

Gas Tank Explosion - Pinto still owns this word and will forever thanks to Ralph Nader's Unsafe at an speed book.

Mission Accomplished - George Bush's ill-advised use of these words to describe the end of the initial campaign in Iraq continues to cause him grief.












The meaning of the words "Mission Accomplished" have change. The public no longer views these words as the successful completion of a difficult task, instead these words now mean a complete disconnect with the reality of a situation, saying one thing that is opposite of reality.

Mission Accomplished as a statement is now a term to describe someone who is naive, uninformed, or unaware of the complete debacle that is about to ensue due to their actions.


Unintended message

The question I have then is this. Why would Novell run a prominent ad that focused on the term Mission Accomplished?

The Var Guy recently snapped a photo of one of Novell's banner ads in Boston during the Red Hat conference.

You can view The Var Guys blog at http://www.thevarguy.com/.

You can't read the ad. You can read Novell in the bottom left corner and you can read Mission Accomplished quite clearly, but nearly everything else is lost in an unreadable green color and a tiny font.

Is someone going to stand in front of this sign and attempt to figure out what it says? Doubt it.

Is someone going to look at this banner and wonder what Novell was thinking when they used the exact words that have come to be so closely associated with the war in Iraq and criticism of our current administration's handling of that war?

I doubt many will notice or even care that Novell has bungled this marketing message. I can hear someone saying that we can't go around removing words from the English language simply because they have a little negative baggage associated with them.

Uh, I think I disagree with that.

Words change and we must change with them. A good marketing team is aware of their message and what it says.

Mission Accomplished is not what you want people thinking about when deploying Novell. A comparison to a SUSE Linux rollout in your enterprise and the war in Iraq cannot be a good thing on any level.