Still chewing on last Thursday’s topic, when I think of an orange brand today, the first that comes to mind is ING Direct, which has based much of its marketing outreach on branding the color. In fact, the company has even created orange cafes in four US cities – you can step into a predominantly orange environment, with oranges in bins all around, and sit in an orange chair as you sip a coffee while an ING representative (presumably with an orange name tag) helps you to open and Orange Savings account.

But let’s not forget Home Depot, Sunkist, JBL, the hindquarters of the FedEx logo, and one of my favorite brand head fakes, Yellow Freight which, curiously (and cleverly, I think), boasts an orange logo. The story goes that the founder (A.J. Harrell) had a company named Yellow Taxi already, so it was a natural choice, and the orange color was for increased safety rolling down the highway … “Breaker 1-9, this here’s the Rubber Duck, only I ain’t yellow, as rubber ducks go, I’m a big bold shade of orange, and mighty proud of it, to boot.”

Posted by: Colin Mangham

That walk past Orange Julius yesterday also reminded me of a little-known story I read recently regarding sight-sensory branding, and one that would surely make Bugs raise a brow. According to Martin Lindstrom, whose book Brand Sense is a favorite tome on the topic, “Carrots once came in every color but orange. There were red, black, green, white and purple varieties. Then sometime in the sixteenth century Dutch growers decided to give this root vegetable a patriotic edge,” breeders began developing an orange variety in honor of their monarch, William I, the Prince of Orange, “a country with an orange flag now had an orange carrot.”

And what a supremely missed brand opportunity this turned out to be – how many people who eat orange carrots today know that it all ties back to some genetic dice rolling in the Netherlands, let alone the Prince of Orange?

Posted by: Colin Mangham

Some additional thoughts on foreign market entries … we’ve discovered that whatever operations a US-headquartered company establishes in a BEM such as, for example, South Africa (where we’ve assisted in the development of two feature films) should be supported with training programs that not only provide career-building incentives for the workers, but also curry favor with the government in helping to educate and elevate the skills and marketability of the labor force however appropriately.

Further, it’s critical in most cases to set up joint ventures with in-country partners — for example, tightly integrated manufacturing operations (assuming a “product” orientation here) — even if only to a minor degree; the knowledge share alone can be a real boon, irrespective of actual profits. Also, engaging in-market distribution channel partners to move those products to consumers through established systems and storefronts is critical, and has proven a favorable path with a lot of companies using white- or private-label strategies. Which may sound obvious, but it’s easier said that done given a variety of factors, not the least of which are language barriers and cultural differences.

Posted by: Colin Mangham

When assessing global marketing strategies, as we did a couple of years ago with a mobile media company soft launch in Vietnam to be followed by rollouts in China and India, it’s useful to segment markets according to stages of economic development before digging in to assess real opportunities and challenges. This is particularly the case when endeavoring to leverage marketing efforts, brand positioning and operational practices proven successful in a company’s existing markets when expanding into new markets.

The World Bank provides some useful segmentation categories, with gross national product (GNP) providing a basis. The four key categories include Big Emerging Markets (BEMs), Least-Developed Countries (LDCs), Newly Industrializing Economies (NIEs) and The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) comprised of mature economies.

According to the United Nations, there are 50 countries in the low-income ranks that are considered “least developed” in terms of market potential. A key contrasting characteristic of these markets, particularly the case in China, is that market growth is largely driven by cheap but highly motivated labor forces serving international markets through trade/export activities. China is also categorized as a “Big Emerging Market” (as are India and Brazil), and what quite obviously makes these countries increasingly powerful are their large populations, which provide not only the opportunity to harness cheap labor in the manufacturing sectors, but also reach large numbers of consumers … a billion-plus in China alone. As if you haven’t already heard that a hundred times or more this year alone, eh?

Posted by: Colin Mangham

Phillips Electronics, headquartered in Eindhoven, Netherlands, was until recently very much following a polycentric orientation, which assumes that each country is unique in terms of its target consumer behavior, as well as demos, psychographics, price elasticities, color affinities and associations, etc. Corresponding marketing approaches are intended to be unique and invariably led by in-country managers with a high-degree of autonomy. This worked well for Phillips until more globally/geocentrically oriented companies such as Japan’s Matsushita began competing with them atop multinational strategies that, as the RAI Foundation presents it, leveraged efficiencies enabled by the integration of marketing activities across borders.

I find it curious, especially with Marshall McLuhan’s global village cinched tighter and tighter every day by broadband strings of 0’s and 1’s, that ethnocentric orientations hold the perspective that one’s home country is superior to other countries. The managers of such strategic approaches tend to assume that the marketing that works at home will work abroad. Doesn’t take a c-level exec to recognize that’s a path to failure today, or at least stagnation, in most cases, particularly with the connectivity of the Internet effectively leveling the playing field for consumers with respect to product knowledge.

It should be noted, however, that Harley-Davidson is by most definitions an ethnocentric company, understandably with respect to its positioning as an ‘all-American’ brand holding a multinational appeal. Similarly, Mickey and Snoopy are as American as can be, but their red, white and blue heritage is rarely muted, infrequently compromised, mostly capitalized upon.

Another example I found reading Keegan and Green’s text on Global Marketing (2005: 17) cites Nissan’s early international operations as being ethnocentric, in that they did not design cars specifically for, say, the United States; they exported cars that were designed for use in Japan. The authors provide a humorous anecdote, wherein the automaker admitted that they thought that since Japanese owners would place blankets on their car hoods in the winter to keep them warm enough to start that Americans would do the same thing. Um, nuh-uh.

Posted by: Colin Mangham

Extending yesterday’s Food for Thought theme (aka, Not in My Kitchen), Hindu tradition is noted for its embrace and protection of “sacred cows,” matriarchal symbols of both the sanctity and abundance of life, as well as providers of milk and cheese, the latter of which has been known to cause a gag reflex in China.

This point was not lost on McDonald’s in India, where they have radically modified the ever-popular childhood obesity menu to include a wide variety of vegetarian items, including the McVeggie (McClever, don’t you think?), as well as McAloo Tikkis and Pizza McPuffs (basically HotPockets, but without the chunks of Kryptonite).

All this in a restaurant that once jingled us to the point of “uncle!” about its “all-beef patties.” Our favorite Wendy’s grandma would seriously wonder “Where’s the beef.” According to the McDonald’s website (www.mcdonaldsindia.com), “We do not offer any beef or pork items in India. Only the freshest chicken and fish products find their way into our Indian restaurants.”

What really catches my eye here is the phrasing “find their way into our … restaurants.” Curious choice of words. Maybe something lost in translation, only without the allure of Bill Murray singing Elvis Costello? I mean, don’t they order the stuff? Procure it? Or does it just find its way to the doorstep and the deep fryer … some lucky chicken falls out of a cage bungeed to the back of scooter speeding by … or Darwin’s fish crawls onto land and flops toward the Golden Arches. Who can know. And who cares, really … as long as my fries are “cut, blanched and processed on state of the art processing lines to ensure maximum retention of nutrients” and I can dredge them through a paper cup of catsup, I’m golden.

Posted by: Colin Mangham

This year marks the 50th Anniversary of NASA (established July 29, 1958), and today marks the 40th anniversary of the Beatles recording “Across the Universe.” So tonight (midnight GMT/4pm PST), NASA TV will “launch” the song into deep space, and televise the event live from JPL in Pasadena. You can tune-in online here. Or you can tune out and just iPod the song for your own private launch. Or certainly you can tune out completely and just ignore the whole big she-bang. For the moment, I’m just going to hum along a few minutes…

Words are flying out like
endless rain into a paper cup
They slither while they pass
They slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow waves of joy
are drifting thorough my open mind
Possessing and caressing me

Jai guru deva om
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world
Nothing’s gonna change my world

Images of broken light which
dance before me like a million eyes
That call me on and on across the universe
Thoughts meander like a
restless wind inside a letter box
they tumble blindly as
they make their way across the universe

(Jai guru refrain)

Sounds of laughter shades of life
are ringing through my open ears
exciting and inviting me
Limitless undying love which
shines around me like a million suns
It calls me on and on across the universe

(Jai guru refrain)

If you’ve not heard the Starbucks bit about passing the cheer yet you’ve probably not been to a Starbucks lately or, for that matter, watched TV at primetime. (Not that that’s a bad thing.) The promotional concept, as it were (and it was and is a promo stunt, no matter how you drip, mix, foam or double-shot it), is that Starbuckians the world over should effectively pay it forward by sharing some cheerful joyful happy-happy goodwill with a neighbor next door or a pen pal in a galaxy far, far away, albeit through a website developed for just such a task … Pass the Cheer here.

There are also ‘real world’ stories about conga lines of cheer-passing, wherein the person in front of you pays for your venti of joe, and so on and so on down the line, similar to paying the turnpike or parking booth toll for the driver behind you, totally kumbaya. In fact (though likely with two scoops of fiction), a local rag in Marysville, Washington reported that just such a good deed set off a chain of 1,013 Starbucks customers who each paid for the next person’s drink.

The critics, and there are many (though mostly the usual suspects waiting impatiently for a reason, big or small, to skewer Seattle’s behemoth yet again) frame all of this as premeditated capitalist hokum and a shameless way to build brand awareness. But I’m going to stick to a more holistic view and say I don’t see it that way, so black and white, good or bad, for the same reason that I’m not particularly upset that so many corporations have jumped on the Green bandwagon … if the message is good, let’s get it out there. And if the company increases sales, well, OK, good for them.

Or maybe I’m just being soft here on the heels of a December 25th? I know that there are few if any companies (with the exception of maybe The Body Shop, Newman’s Own, and Ben and Jerry’s) that truly walk the social venture walk. But for now, sure, I can buy Pass the Cheer, why not. I mean, I still hold a fondness for Santa riding Norelcos through a winterwonderland and polar bears sipping Cokes. That said, three cheers to all, and to all a good night (assuming you’re not too caffeinated to sleep).

Posted by: Colin Mangham

Happened upon an Orange Julius in Grove City, Pennsylvania today. (Yep, hittin’ the outlet mall 11th hour, again.) So, wow, been a while since I’ve seen one of those, and whisked me back to my mall rat days decades ago mixing their sugar rush slosh with a corndog and some Jolly Ranchers before heading over to the shirt shop to pick the sparkly iron-on I wanted transferred to a Beefy-T.

Hmmm. Maybe it was Farah? Daisy Duke? ELO? Jimmie Walker grinning “Dyn-o-mite!?” Or one of those hotrods with the flames spitting out the pipes and some Busch League aphorism like, “Old Chevy’s never die, they just go faster!?” And of course it had to have three-quarter sleeves … baseball-style, concert cool.

Anyway, a nice blast from the past, that Orange Julius, and glad to see the neon still burning bright. Apparently they’ve stayed the course and managed to hold ground against the likes of Jamba Juice, Robeks and a slew of others that jumped on the smoothie train, craftily concocting protein-powdered quick fixes to fuel some suburban shoppers through the most exercise they’ll get all weekend. Hey, I ain’t knockin’ it, whatever gets you through the night, s’alright, yeah, alright. Wait, no, maybe it was Cheryl Ladd? Better check the attic, must have that stuff mothballed somewhere….

Posted by: Colin Mangham

Or in this case, a nut for About.com (though there are several others), which, as I expected to find in my deeper spelunking, upends the JFK donut story as overblown, even frames it as a myth — though I would hardly say this ranks up there with Nessie in Scotland, bubble-eyed E.T.’s in Area 51 or even 30-foot alligators sloshing beneath the streets of Manhattan (let’s not rule that one out just yet).

“No one laughed at or misunderstood President Kennedy’s words spoken in German. In fact, he had been provided help from translators who knew the language well. He wrote out the key phrase phonetically [see my previous blog entry with the photo of his crib sheet] and practiced it before his speech … and his words were warmly received. Yet this German myth has been perpetuated by teachers of German and other people who should know better” (About.com).

The source goes on to point out that in Berlin a jelly donut is actually called ein Pfannkuchen (literally, pancake), not ein Berliner. So really what we’re talking about here is context and perceptual biases, and if I think of all the times someone (even German) has scrambled the English language in a gallant attempt to communicate way outside of their native tongue but I still understood them, well, again, it’s all about context.

Now, even though I have recently tried my hand, er, mouth at Vietnamese and Japanese (no doubt sounding like the proverbial Village Idiot in my goodnatured attempts), still to this day I won’t even attempt to speak French in France beyond, say, casual salutations. But that’s a story for another day and a plate or deux of les trois gourmandes in front of me (Ich bin ein gluttonous Amerikaner, nein?).

Posted by: Colin Mangham