How to Make Your Brand Stand Out FAST | CXOTalk #893 - CXOTalk

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
How do you build a brand that stands out in a crowded market?
And how do great brands become leaders?
Today on CXO Talk number 893, wetalked with Laura Reese, one of
the world's top branding expertsand author of the new book
Strategic Enemy. Laura explains how to choose an

(00:22):
enemy, simplify your message, and create symbols that tell
your brand story. I'm your host, Michael Krigsman.
Let's get into it. My father was legendary
positioning pioneer Al Reese, and so from the very beginning I
learned about positioning at thedinner table.
So it's been my family business,my personal, you know, just
mission to talk about and work with companies on positioning

(00:44):
strategy. Laura, you just are publishing
now. I think it's coming out this
week a book called The StrategicEnemy on branding.
Tell us about your book. Owning a word in the mind,
right? That is what positioning was all
about. But that's a big challenge of,
of how to do that. So, you know, we've developed

(01:05):
over the years several things like the visual hammer, another
one of my concepts. But it occurred to me, you know,
when working with clients, how do we best get them to, you
know, focus their positioning and how do we get it into the
mind of the consumer? And it I realized that, you
know, if you can provide that contrast.
So a strategic enemy is an oppositional force that your
brand stands against. And when you clearly communicate

(01:26):
what you're against, it actuallyis more easy for people to
understand what you stand for and why.
You see Chick-fil-A, what have they been doing for 30 years?
You know, they have cows that say eat more chicken, right?
Strongly positioning against that enemy to get people to
understand that they are the place, the original, the pioneer
of the fried chicken sandwich, and building and strengthening

(01:47):
that category and position in the mind of the consumer.
Why is this so important? You know, if you want people to
remember you, if you want peopleto choose your brand, talk about
your brand. You know, all of these things
comes down to the brand and the positioning of it and and what
is branding? I mean it, it started with the
cattle, right? You wanted to stand out from
everyone else in the world. And we live in an over

(02:10):
communicated society. We've got too many brands, too
many messages. So branding and positioning in
particular is how you stand out,and it comes down to being
different, having a focus. And then if you can clearly
communicate in contrast to a strategic enemy, it can make you
even more memorable and get people really excited to be part

(02:30):
of your movement, right? To make your brand a brand worth
fighting for. Having a strategic enemy.
It's so important. You named your you.
You're titled your book this way, So tell us about that.
We work with a lot of companies,but also study a lot of company
histories and it's incredibly important to not just look what
they're doing today, but how didthey build those brands?

(02:50):
How did what did they do specifically in their strategy?
And when I looked at that, you know, it was many times the most
successful ones did use that strategic enemy, that
oppositional force. What did Salesforce do today?
You know, tremendously successful CRM cloud.
Initially the messaging was all about no software.

(03:10):
It was what they were not. The power of no is incredibly
important. So that was the whole campaign,
the end of software. They first had a, you know,
downplay the enemy before they could take over the position or
one of my favorite examples, dude wipes.
They focused in on, you know, wet toilet paper specifically,
you know, for dudes right to clean up in the bathroom and

(03:32):
they've taken on the big toilet papers.
It was that narrow focus that allowed them to say the end of
toilet paper, you know, send toilet paper to the stone ages.
You know, you can't have an enemy if you don't have a focus.
So that's a really big part of it.
Years ago I spent a lot of time with Alesforce as an industry
analyst and I used to go to lotsof their events.

(03:53):
I still do and that no software logo that they had.
With the big no. Right, with the big red line
through it that did clearly define what they were and what
they were not. It's a line in the sand and you

(04:15):
know, not very many companies are willing to do that.
They want to appeal to everyone.They want to sell to everyone.
When in fact, if you can do that, draw that line, it makes
your position stronger and allows you to have that enemy
that you can go up against. And you know, first at the at
the time of cloud, I mean, everyone was kind of adding it
on as a small thing. Uh huh.
The big opportunities to put everything into it.

(04:37):
Exactly what Salesforce did. And, you know, that iconic
visual of not only talking aboutstrategy, verbalizing it, but
visualizing, that's what I call a visual hammer.
And that visuals are more emotional.
They're more memorable, they're more repeatable.
And that will intensify your positioning power.
And even on the other hand, you see where, you know, MD

(04:58):
Anderson, you know, in their Cancer Center logo, they cross
out the word cancer. How powerful is that to, you
know, visualize their strategy, their focus on cancer and ending
cancer, making cancer history. So you have really, correct me
if I'm wrong, an entire kind of multi sensory system.

(05:20):
I remember Marc Benioff at that time talking about Microsoft and
talking about Oracle, and he would talk about these companies
as being almost like the the great Satan's.
Oh, he was very strong in his language.
They used to protest Oracle events and have picket signs.

(05:41):
And you know, he, he really tookit to the extreme.
And then absolutely in certain situations you can do that
liquid death taking on plastic bottles, you know, ruining the
environment or Patagonia taking on, you know, don't buy this
jacket, but you know it, it can also be subtly done.
I mean, Subaru for example, you know, they were losing money.
They were making 2 wheel drive and four wheel drive cars that

(06:04):
got rid of the two wheel. They were the pioneer in
all-wheel or 4 wheel drive vehicles.
But by focusing on it, it made it even more important and
allowed them to, you know, position and own the car for the
outdoors type of people, adventure seekers.
And that was really very strong.I mean, they never, you know,
had picket signs that, you know,2 wheeled cars weren't cool.

(06:25):
But it was that strategy. And internally as a company, it
is incredibly important to have that enemy mindset.
What are we not, you know, who are we going up against?
How are we stronger? Because we stand for something
and we're very clear on what, not just what we are, but what
we're not and what we won't do and where we won't go with it.
It's so hard to do that. Of course it is.

(06:46):
Nobody ever said it was easy. It's easy to read the book.
But, you know, at the very last chapter I said, I know it's
hard. It's going to take courage.
It's going to take sacrifice. But that's, you know, that's
what makes great entrepreneurs. And unfortunately, the big, you
know, ideas and brands are not being built by the big companies
because it's very hard in those companies to do this.

(07:07):
And the opportunity for entrepreneurs to do this is
tremendous and very exciting to see.
We have a question from LinkedInand let me just mention to
everybody that you should take advantage of this opportunity to
ask Laura Reese pretty much whatever you want.
So take advantage of it. If you're watching on LinkedIn,

(07:31):
type your questions into the LinkedIn chat.
If you're watching on Twitter X,use the hashtag CXO Talk.
So Steve Conway says this on LinkedIn.
He thinks the enemy strategy depends.
And he says a known name, a known computer company that he

(07:51):
worked for got beaten to the punch on an important new
technology and 1st tried to brand against it, then realized
it was the future, began developing a product based on it
and applauded the new technology.
A year later, the company he worked for knocked the
competitors out of the market. He said the enemy marketing

(08:13):
stance isn't always appropriate.All of these things, you have to
put it into the context of the situation.
But here's the thing, one of themost important principles in
marketing is being first in something and standing for that,
not just in the marketplace, butin the mind of the consumer.
So in many of these cases, you know, whether you're first out

(08:35):
there, you know, unless you've made it into the mind, it's not
going to be powerful. The other thing is the
importance of the category itself.
And that is incredibly importantbecause consumers care more
about categories than they do about brands.
Brands are the way you verbalizethe category.
So, you know, depending on what your brand is, what does it
stand for right now, that is going to say a lot about the

(08:57):
enemies you can go up against because what you stand for is
not going to be easily changed. And you think back to Kodak,
they stood for film photography.They were first with the first
digital camera. But what did they do?
They called it a Kodak. And that didn't work with the
mind. The mind rejected that.
So even though they had the advantage of being first, they

(09:18):
went out there. I mean, they could have had the
greatest positioning ever, but with that that name, it was an
incredible challenge that they were not able to overcome and,
you know, went bust because of it.
So all these things have to be taken into consideration.
Subscribe to the CXO Talk newsletter so we can notify you
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(09:40):
ask questions of the guest. We have amazing guests coming
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We have another really interesting question coming on
Twitter on X from Arsalan Khan. We still call it Twitter, don't
we? Because that was such a better
name with a visual. You know what?
Yes. And you talk about that in your
book with you talk about the little bird, the little blue

(10:03):
bird, and now X, it's like. How do you visualize X when you
have something? Why would you get rid of it?
I mean, you go back to Jaguar trying to get rid of the cat or
Cracker Barrel trying to get ridof the barrel when your name is
so, you know, iconically connected to a visual or
Tropicana, you know, for a time that got rid of the straw and

(10:23):
the orange. I mean, consumers revolted.
It was crazy, the same way they did with Cracker Barrel.
Those are very strong emotional connections.
And when you have it, you shouldsavor it and definitely not get
rid. So go back to the question from
Twitter. I could easily pull on on about
a dozen threads that you just raised.
But let's go back to Arsalan Khan's question.

(10:45):
He says, and this is a good question, He says, what is the
link between branding and customer experience?
What happens to branding when customer experience is
lackluster? Brand is more than a logo,
right? It's more than just a visual
hammer. It's more than your slogan.
It it's everything. And what you need to do is find

(11:07):
what your focus is, what your position is and have it then
apply and work across all those different areas, you know, from
the customer experience to to everything.
So, but the first thing is, you know, what do we want to stand
for and in customer experience, I mean, sometimes it can be, you
know, very high touch or it can be, you know, very hands off and
self-service. I mean, there's no one right

(11:28):
answer. There's no, you know, right
position and in fact, any position, the opposite can be
just as true and it should be, right.
You have Walmart that is, you know, the greatest retailer
ever, low prices, but there's also a position to go against
that. And that's exactly what Target
did. at Target, it's we call it Tarjay, right?
It's a little bit more chic. It's the same stuff about the

(11:50):
same price, but it has a design oriented focus.
And you know, unfortunately, they in recent years lost sight
of that. And you can never forget what
that differentiation of your brand is.
I call it the anchor of what your brand stands for.
You've got to strengthen it, you've got to reinforce it, and
you've got to make that, you know, customer experience match
in with whatever your strategy is.

(12:12):
So it's incredibly all, you know, build on each other.
All these things together are all the tools that build an
incredibly powerful brand. But there are situations when a
company has a very, very strong and very believable brand, but
as Arsalan Khan was getting to the actual experience or the

(12:33):
product fall short and then you come away thinking, well, this
is a lie, this impression, this brand is not true.
You can't just win by having a better advertising message or
slogan. I mean, you actually have to
deliver on a product. But here's the thing, it all
comes down to the perception is key.

(12:54):
Now when you have a bad experience with a company you
love, you know a one off situation, you're like, oh, they
must have just had a bad day. You have a bad experience with a
brand you don't have a strong favorable perception of.
You say, see, I knew they sucked, right?
So, you know, but overall, if you know, if your car, you know,
drives off the lot and every carthe wheels fall off, you're not

(13:15):
going to be successful. I don't care how strong the
positioning was. I mean, you do have to have, but
there is, you know, think back to Tesla.
I mean early on there were some problems and there were some
difficulties, but the brand, youknow, strongly worked with those
consumers and they strongly madethe product better and better
and better and the experience and all these things.
You have to constantly keep that, keep up with that to make

(13:38):
sure that they do line and you do and you are reinforcing your
strategy, you know, throughout the whole system.
Can you describe the nuts and bolts of identifying the right
strategic enemy? One of the greatest ways to do
it and you know, we talked aboutthis for years and positioning

(13:59):
is the opportunity to be first and create a new category that
you can be first in That's one of the most powerful things to
do. Now when you are pioneering a
new category that will instantlymake the old category the enemy
and that's a a very good and strong dynamic you can do what
did iPhone do now when you create a category, you know the

(14:19):
category name, the brand, all these things are incredibly
important. I phone said it wasn't just
another phone that had advanced features.
It says no, no, we are the firstsmartphone.
What a great category name because what did that instantly
do to Nokia, the world leader incell phones?
It repositioned them as a dumb phone.
And so you know, that was a classic strategy of using this,

(14:42):
you know, this type of thinking and you know before that another
example is the iPod itself. You know, when Steve Jobs came
back to Apple, you know the the first one of the great things he
did, but the the brand that really brought back the company
was the iPod. Now this was a revolutionary
idea and it was going up againstwhat everyone else was doing.

(15:03):
Everyone else at the time, it was these cheap, you know, hard,
not hard drive, but flash drive players, right?
The Rio, everybody was using these.
They were cheap. They were they were great.
You know, they were super convenient.
But he said no, no, I think there's an opportunity to be the
opposite, a hard drive player, more expensive.
It could also hold more songs. But it was the idea of
positioning it as the hard drive, but also oversimplifying

(15:27):
the communication strategy of it.
So you had the iPod and the strategy was 1000 songs in your
pocket. Wow.
What a way to, you know, make itmemorable, make it simple.
And then of course, you had the white earbuds, which, you know,
clearly defined it in the in themarket to have great visibility.
Now, here's the thing. Are white earbuds better?
No, they, they get dirty. Everyone else had black wires

(15:51):
because they're invisible and they don't get dirt.
You don't see the dirt. But it, it is about being
different, different about standing out.
And that's takes courage, but that's how you're really going
to build a brand and make a difference.
So finding a way to be a new category that you can go up
against or a way to differentiate.
If you're within a category, howcan you narrow the focus and

(16:11):
differentiate from the leader and the other players?
Look at online dating, not that I'm there, I'm married, but
match.com, you know, they were the first online dating.
So how do you compete against that?
You're going to be better. You're going to have better
pricing. Those are usually that's not a
way to, you know, find a strategic enemy and to build a
brand, the ones that competed strongly against it narrow the

(16:33):
focus. So Tinder was worth hooking up.
And then what did an ex VP of Tinder do?
She said, you know, women don't like being swiped right on on
the Tinder and they actually want to date.
They don't want to hook up. And so she launched a new brand
called Bumble. And at Bumble, women make the
first move. And so that was, you know, the

(16:53):
site that women had the power and a very powerful way to build
their position and strongly identify who the enemy was.
So you need to really understandyour customer then in order to
find some attributes, something that's lacking in the existing
set of products, in order to then do that thing better and

(17:19):
differently. And then you can define all of
that as the enemy. Is that a correct way to look at
it? Is one of the ways to look at
it. So it could be an absolutely an
pain point out there that peopleare experiencing, like I said,
with women and the dating sites and you know, Bumble took
advantage of that built and strong brand against that.

(17:40):
But sometimes people don't know look at farmer's dog and what
they did. Listen, I've been feeding my dog
very expensive dried food for for years.
I thought that was the best thing to do.
That's what my vet said. That's what I read.
I thought and you know, online and magazines, etcetera, until
Farmer's dog came along long andthey told me they positioned,
you know, dry dog food as burnt brown balls over, you know,

(18:03):
highly processed food and said, you know, you shouldn't eat
highly processed food for every meal of the day.
It's not healthy. Why would you do that to your
dog? It's going to shorten your dog's
life. And so they were able to not
really even take so many people necessarily knew, but they
positioned it in a very strong way to clearly make the contrast
between dry dog food and, you know, using fresh pet, which is,

(18:26):
you know, human grade in food for food for dogs.
Defining the strategic enemy andbeing different are kind of two
sides of the same coin in a way.See, the mind understands
contrast faster than it does superiority.
Meaning many companies are out there just saying we're better.
And they might believe that, andmaybe they are better, but the

(18:48):
best way to communicate that you're better is actually to
show a contrast of how you're different, of what you know.
Everyone makes choices. There's always alternatives out
there. And so to show that contrast is,
is, is a trick for the mind. You know, we understand hot by
knowing cold, right? We understand summer by knowing
winter. It's these contrasts that bring

(19:08):
the clarity of the situation. So the same way is true in in
branding. And it's important then to to
have that focus and then be visually different.
If you think about the first Prius out there, it looked
different, right? It didn't try to look like
everyone. So having not just the focus,
but having the visual difference, we'll definitely
help you, you know, show visiblythat contrast as well as the

(19:31):
branding. We have another really
interesting question again from Arsalan Khan coming on Twitter,
who says this. He's talking about IT
departments, and we all know IT departments very often don't
have the best reputation. And so he says this looking

(19:53):
inwards, I guess inward to the company, does IT need branding
and marketing inside the organization so that they are
not considered just as obstaclesor order takers?
And he goes on, is lack of branding the cause of
organizational misalignment? But I think really the main

(20:17):
thing here is. Is the problem with IT the the
brand? Many times companies want to say
all the things they do or even adepartment, all the great things
they do. But if you can focus in on one
thing, right, one thing that will be memorable, that will
stand you apart. And I mean, I go back to other
examples so everyone can understand.
But you know, think about what did BMW do?

(20:39):
I mean, initially when they cameinto the market, they talked
about everything, you know, the fuel mileage, the looks, the
cars, everything. But that didn't build the brand.
They were 17th and imported carsinto America until they focused
on one thing and that was driving.
And driving instantly set up an enemy because who was the enemy?

(21:00):
The leader, of course, was Mercedes-Benz.
Mercedes are comfortable and BMWsaid we're the ultimate driving
machine versus the ultimate sitting machine.
What a powerful way now to talk about, you know, the difference
that they had the difference that they offer that might not
be for everybody. Listen, I mean, it would it
would take these things are theytake a lot of time to think

(21:21):
about. And so in, in, in ITI mean, I,
I, I help a non profit in the ITdepartment.
We're incredibly important and you have to think about, you
know, what is, I mean, the, the speed of response, the way you
respond. You know, there's lots of ways
to, to visualize the people sometimes to put faces to, to
individuals is incredibly important to make that human

(21:42):
connection and to show that you know, you're real.
It's not just a bot. Is the core here the product
definition, which I'm thinking maybe not because you described
better product is not always best when it comes to branding.
So is the core of the product oris the core the the
presentation, the communication and perception of that product?

(22:09):
It's all about perception, right?
The the reality in, in in some ways doesn't matter.
It is the perception that you know that overrides it, if you
will. And that's why leadership is the
most powerful position you can own, because leadership leads to
a perception that your product is better.
For some reason, we believe the leader is better because
otherwise why would why? That's why they're the leader.

(22:32):
They must be better. And, and unfortunately, when you
tell people when you're not the leader and you say, oh, we're,
we're better than the leader, people say, well, that can't be
true. If if it was, you would be the
leader. That's the, you know, the, the
roundabout logic that goes around in the marketplace.
So instead of if, when you're going up against, say a leader,
instead of, you know, show how you're different, how does that

(22:55):
difference then connect to making you better?
It sets up the conversation. So you're not just, you know,
when you say you're better, it's, you know, it's what you're
saying about, about yourself that's not believable.
The only thing that's believableis what other people say.
And if you can arm them with notjust this is better than that,
but why it's better. Look, in the electronic

(23:15):
toothbrush war, we, we've got Oral-B, right?
And we got Sonicare. Now Sonicare was first, right?
They pioneered the category. They're the dominant leader.
How does Oral-B go up against them and compete by, you know,
the statistics and better this, better that, uh, uh, they had a
visual difference. Their toothbrush head is round

(23:37):
and oral BS. It looks like a regular
toothbrush and that's a powerfulposition and one they actually
should leverage more. Because when I, I talked to my
dental hygienist to try to ask her which, which should I use?
I was doing a little customer research there.
She said, well, you know, they're both good to clean your
teeth. But then she added, well, I, I
do like the Oral-B because you see that round brush is just

(23:58):
like the tools I use here at thedentist office.
It's the more professional head that's a powerful position, and
that's a way to differentiate both visually and strategically
from a very strong, you know, leader in the category.
So you need to latch on to some attribute, define some really

(24:19):
some attribute that will be really crucial or you can
explain is very crucial to an. Indisputable difference.
I like to say something that is so clearly obvious that can be
seen in a round versus Oval. There's, you know, you can't
dispute that, right? I mean farmer's dog, it's fresh
food, right? I mean, it's not disputable

(24:40):
whether this is fresh and that is processed those very clear
distinctions. The challenge I think for many
organizations is to accomplish this requires working across the
organization because you have marketing.
But this also feeds into productdevelopment, right?

(25:02):
Because is it marketing that then tells the product folks,
well you need to change this or change that if you want the
marketing to be successful? No, absolutely.
I mean, I, I think Subaru is a very good example because I
mean, one of the greatest compacts in automotive history.
As a matter of fact, I mean, they were floundering when they

(25:23):
were trying to sell and make andposition 2 wheel drive and four
wheel drive. And here's the thing that made
sense in the market. And that's the trick to
understand in the market. You look at the United States,
at the north, we've got snow andice and you need 4 wheel drive
is almost necessary. I live here in Atlanta.
It snows once every 10 years. We don't really need it.

(25:45):
And so, you know, the company figured well, we'll sell them
the less expensive 2 wheel driveand but then you don't where's
the message? Where's the strength?
Where's the focus? Where's the enemy?
And so when the executive came in, I mean, the business was 40%
four wheel drive and 52% two wheel drive.
He got out of half of the business.
Unbelievable amount of courage. But that allowed them the entire

(26:08):
organization to double down on 4wheel and that they didn't stop
there. They also then went and
developed more products in that 4 wheel drive and they came out
with the the very hot selling, you know, Outback and other
models that really showcase and visualize A4 wheel drive car in
a new imaginative way. So it really does, I think, open

(26:30):
up opportunities. Many people think, you know,
having having a focus or, you know, being locked in or, you
know, going against an enemy means, you know, restriction.
It doesn't, it actually can Oprah open up other ideas and
things that you can go into and expand on and make these more
important The way Volvo, you know, went in and all in on
safety, right? I mean, we like to say they they

(26:52):
fired the the car designers. It looked like a tank.
I mean, that was, you know, partof the strategy that a safe car
shouldn't look dangerous. And one of the mistakes they
made is they did try to expand for a while there.
They were making, I mean, a Volvo convertible.
Those are strategic missteps. You make yourself your own worst
enemy when you do that. O this definition is really the

(27:16):
core because that defines. We do this an it's special for
XYZ reason and we don't do that,which is what everybody else
does because that's inferior to this thing that we're doing.
I hope it's the category itself,right.
Once you've established that you're trying to gain interest

(27:38):
in the category and interest in cars.
Now here in Atlanta, while we don't need 4 wheel drive,
outbacks are everywhere because people were, you know,
enthralled with the with the brand, with the excitement, with
the four wheel drive as well, aswell as with the connection to
be an adventure seeker, an outdoor enthusiast, all these
other great ideas that they've packed in and the brand and car
really represent that. So an incredibly important part

(28:01):
of it. Now you talk a lot about
repetition. Tell us about that.
If you say one thing, the more you repeat something, the more
believable it is. The power of the ultimate
driving machine of saying this for decades and decades and
decades. Or Skittles, taste the rainbow
or Kit Kat, have a break. Or just do it in Nike.

(28:23):
It is the repetition of the ideathat makes it more powerful and
memorable. So you know, most companies are
changing their slogans, changingtheir ideas all the time now.
Yes, you can change until you'relocked in onto that core key,
the idea that, you know, best communicate solidifies your
strategy, and then it's repeat, repeat, repeat.

(28:44):
The problem is for a company andeven a person, that's really
boring. And unfortunately, when a new
executive comes in, I mean, they're trying to make their
mark, right? So they think, oh, I'm going to
hire a new agency. We're going to have a new
campaign that often doesn't leadto, you know, success for the
company. It might make you well known,
but the for the company, it is, you know, solidifying that

(29:04):
strategy and, you know, keeping weight on that anchor not for
weeks, not for months, but for decades.
And that's really successful. And then you tie that to
simplicity. Simplicity is, is the core of,
of a positioning and, and even the, the strategic enemy.
I mean, you've got to make it simple and clear.
There's too many messages out there.
You don't have time to tell a whole story.

(29:25):
Now is a whole story great for your brand?
Absolutely. Your, your customers should know
it. Your employees should know it.
You're avid fans, but you've gota couple seconds to make, you
know, impression. How are you going to do it?
What, what's the visual? What's the message?
What's the word that we're goingto be?
What's our category that we're going to stand for and get
people excited about? People, people get excited about

(29:46):
the category. It's not the brand Tesla.
It was because they pioneered electric vehicles.
It's not, you know, the Red Bullbrand.
It's that they pioneered energy drinks.
And so getting success and excitement in that category is
essential. What about smaller companies?
To build a category can take a lot of resources.

(30:06):
Well, it can, but it's also a better strategy.
Well, for a small company, you're probably not going to be
able to launch multiple brands, but you can always find a way to
be different. And you know, many times the big
companies that you're going up against, they're into
everything. So by narrowing the focus,
becoming a specialist in something, listen, specialist is
that's a powerful psychological trick.

(30:27):
I mean, you want brain surgery, you going to go to your General
practitioner or your brain surgeon, right?
That specialist is seen as beingbetter by definition as being a
specialist. So there's tremendous
opportunities for companies to do that.
And as that specialty grows, so will your brand dominance.
And here's the other thing that's really important to
remember is that, you know, being focused, you know, on a

(30:51):
category, on an idea doesn't limit a company because
companies can launch multiple brands.
One of my favorite examples is Mike's Hard Lemonade.
You know, they wet up against, you know, beer, right?
Kids were not wanting to drink beer.
They wanted other alcoholic alternatives.
So there was hard lemonade, there was hard iced tea.

(31:12):
And Mike was a, you know, a big,big success in the early 2000s.
But then what happened? Well, we all realized how many
calories and specifically sugar were in those things.
And that was a problem as peoplewere looking to cut carbs and
all of these things. So what do you do then as a
company? Well, you could have launched
multiple line extensions like many companies would do, but not

(31:34):
Mike's Hard Lemonade. Well, they did a little of that.
They did something even more powerful.
They said, what if we created a new brand that would really take
advantage and go up against all the the carbs and calories and
things and all the other products?
And they did. They called it a hard seltzer
and it was called White Claw, a new brand that pioneered this

(31:54):
new category in the mind. The name is important because,
listen, it was not the first brand on the market.
Spike Seltzer was. But that's not a brand name.
That's a category name. And it really had trouble then
being seen as an uppercase in the mind, right?
The mind is all sounds. And it also, it came in glass,
It came in cans. White Claw only came in cans.

(32:17):
And they had a very, you know, strong strategy of appealing to
both men and women of group hangs and being for outdoors,
you know, you can't take glass to the beach.
So White Claw very strongly positioned that as being
different from even the other initially other brands in that
category. And they became the leader.
Of course they're a dominant, dominant brand.
Another question from Twitter, again from Arsalan, who says is

(32:40):
branding headed towards minimalistic design and
messaging. In some ways, here's the thing
your key criteria Well, first ofall, if you have a brand that is
well established in the mind, messing with it too much, making
radical changes is going to be very distracting to your

(33:01):
customers. I mean, look what Pepsi has done
over the years by making these many in times radical changes to
the logo and they finally kind of gone back to the original the
the one iconic image that was, you know, strongly most
remembered by people. And I think that really does,
you know, set it apart in the marketplace.
So, you know, if you do have something strong, you know, not
changing it too much. But I do think that many things,

(33:24):
I mean the simplicity of the strategy, making something
clear. But that's not to say that every
branch should do that because one of the key, you know,
criteria is in your category being different than your
competitors. So if they're super modern and
simple and sleek, maybe your best strategy is to be more
elegant or more, you know, have more design in in it.

(33:46):
So really it depends on the situation, but in general, I do
think many companies are simplifying their packaging just
so that it can be better seen and visibility out there, which
is, you know, just, I mean, somecases you, you couldn't
previously even read the name ofthe, the product on the package.
And so making that front and center, having a visual hammer,
all of those are incredibly and I'd love to see that happening.

(34:09):
And we have another question from Twitter, and this is from
Elizabeth Shaw, who says regarding the positives of
repetition with repetition, somepeople are fearful that the
message will become boring. How should organizations address
that desire to be innovative against your advice to be

(34:32):
repetitive? It can sound boring within the
company itself because remember,you're going to this company
every day. You're talking about this
company every day or looking at their stuff every day.
But think out in the world, I mean, you're most consumers are
not interacting with it every day.
And so the more it can be, you know, visually recognizable and
so that it's seen and it hammersin and and repeats what you know

(34:55):
about the brand. That's tremendously powerful.
But there is one thing I will add to that is that, yeah, I
think words can become too repetitive.
And that's why actually the visual hammer can be so powerful
because if you think about two great examples, Target, right,
you know, using the words Targetand, you know, their slogan, you

(35:15):
know, can be a lot of words. But the image of the Target
logo, I don't think people have as much, you know, much problem
with seeing it. It's it's it's beautiful, it's
attractive. And I think people are more
willing to have it. You know, the bags have the
Target logo all over it. If it had the words, I think it
would be, you know, much more off putting.
Another one is, you know, Coca-Cola, you know, their use

(35:37):
of their iconic, you know, contour bottle.
They put that on everything on trucks, on billboards, on their
marketing, on their their websites.
It's a powerful visual that alsocommunicates their very strong
strategic idea and positioning of being the pioneer, being the
real thing in cola. So again, I think if they said

(35:59):
real thing over and over, sayingit, you know occasionally is
good, but using that visual evenmore is very good.
O the visual hammer, then, is a kind of symbol that presents
represents in. The ideal world, it visualizes

(36:20):
your positioning strategy. So you know it's not just a
graphic, but it's a way to visualize that strategy.
Now that said, in some cases thevisual hammer is just, you know,
a visualization of your name. And in fact, if you pick a name
that can be visualized, that's avery strong strategic move.
The other thing is if you are the very strong and clear

(36:40):
pioneer in a category, any visual that you know you create
and use, you know with repetition will be can become a
strong visual hammer. So you think about Nike and the
swoosh. Swoosh doesn't really
communicate anything, but it's avery simple, you know, visual
that is easy to see. And they and they've used it for
decades and has become to symbolize Nike and its

(37:02):
leadership position. The same with Mercedes-Benz and
the Tristar. And in that case, they did
simplify the logo. They've always had the Tristar,
but it used to be more ornate and that oversimplified version
much easier to see on the cars, right?
And that's incredibly important.So, you know, using that and
thinking about it or for example, Tiffany's, what did

(37:22):
Tiffany do? Well, many people don't know,
but they pioneered the raised prong engagement ring.
Before Tiffany's, everything wasbezel set and now that was
safer. You know, you don't want to lose
that diamond ring, but you know,they engineered and found a way
to make a, you know, super safe and that made the ring pop.
But they just didn't do that. They also sold those rings in a

(37:44):
blue box, you know, that beautiful egg blue, you know,
Pantone color that they've established and that has become
the icon chronic visual hammer of Tiffany's.
So it's not just a logo image. No, sometimes it can be within
the logo or you put it in the logo.
I mean, Red Hat used a Red Hat image within the logo.

(38:05):
But it could be a product, it could be a package, it could be
a person. You know, for many years, Papa
John's used John Schneider rightas their visual hammer for the
for the brand. Or, you know, you've got KFC.
What Colonel Sanders, he's the visual hammer.
Even when they've passed, they've been able to keep his
legacy by using his iconic imageas the visual for their chicken

(38:27):
chain. How long does it take for the
visual hammer to take hold? If you're a start up, for
example, and you start out the gate with a visual hammer with
some icon, iconic image, yeah, the audience doesn't know.
The market doesn't know who whatthat is.
So how long does it take to havemeaning?

(38:48):
It should be instantly understandable about what it is.
So for example, when Corona put the lime in the top of the
bottle of beer, a lime was associated with Mexico.
See in the, in the US we do lemons on everything, right?
Lemonade in Mexico, everything, if you've been down there, they
use lime on everything. So it was very symbolic of
Mexico. And of course, it was a Mexican

(39:09):
imported beer. They, you know, first went into
Mexican restaurants and then they communicated, you know,
this is the cool way to drink beer in Mexico.
And so all of those things, you know, work together.
But here's the thing. I mean, how long does it take?
It depends on the interest in the category, right?
How often you're buying it, how much people are talking about
it, how much PR you get for it. And so all that is, you know,

(39:30):
very dependent on the interest. But, you know, so it's keeping
the courage. And here's the thing, you know,
if it's resonating by, you know,interacting with consumers, by,
you know, showing it to them, seeing if they get it, what
their reactions are, if they're and if they're willing to talk
about it and will they repeat it, your message needs to be
repeatable. And I've talked you talk to BMW

(39:51):
lovers and drivers. I mean, they love the ultimate
driving machine. They can talk about why, you
know, they prefer the brand because it's, you know, the
driving machine. The same with Tesla.
I mean, you know, initially, youknow, being that the EV focus
and you know, people and consumers were very passionate
about being Tesla fans. And in some ways, you know, Elon
is distracted from the message of the EV.
Car with all of his stuff, but you know, he was in fact a very

(40:16):
good spokesperson and the car itself.
Here's another interesting thingthat I love to, to think talk
about those door handles. They're not better.
They're it's, it's very difficult to get in those and
they freeze in the winter, but they're very different.
They're very distinctive. It makes, you know, remembering
that this is a Tesla I'm gettinginto every time I push one of
those things. So you know that being different

(40:38):
is so incredibly important, evensometimes when it might not
necessarily be better. So it's the emotional hook.
There's an emotional component that you look at this, you
associate this visual hammer with the emotion that the brand
is trying to create. You use a visual because visuals

(40:59):
are much more emotional than words.
I mean, look at reading a book versus watching maybe the same
story in a movie. I mean, people will cry in a
movie because the same story when you see the images, it
brings out the emotion. Very few people cry when they
read the book. And so if you can do that with
your brand, if you can, you know, visualize it and it that

(41:20):
will instantly bring the emotional side into it and also
make it more memorable and make it more distinctive out there in
the world. And also, you know, really
visualize again that strategic enemy.
I mean, I love, you know, again that the Chick-fil-A example
with the cows saying eat more chicken.
The problem is very few companies, they're into too many
things. You know, how are they going to

(41:41):
find an enemy? They're not willing to, you
know, do the work and sacrifice.You know, I, I worked with, you
know, a small company. They were, you know, into
software development. They were called Southworks.
I thought that was a great name,but they actually didn't even
bother to tell people. They tried to present themselves
as a big global company. But in fact, when talking to
them, I was like, well, all of your developers are in South

(42:03):
America. That's something different,
that's unique. And you know, do people think
this better right now? Well, no, but we've got to do
then the story and use the PR toshow how South America is taking
off as a great development software development hub.
And so when working with them, Isaid, we got to visualize this,
you know, not just, you know, you can say about, you know, the

(42:23):
South American focus of where the developers are, but we added
the iconic South American map tothe logo and then we found a
focus. So while, you know, what makes
the problem with the others, what are we not doing?
Where are the Nos? And it was, this was software
development on demand. There's no contracts.

(42:45):
There's no long term, you know, contracts with us.
You know, it's on demand anytimetime you can ramp it up, you can
ramp it down and of course the time zone affinity of not being
in, you know, in Europe and Asiathat are, you know, many, many
time zones, you know, ahead or behind.
Laura, you mentioned now software, many listeners for CXO

(43:06):
Talk are involved with software companies, technology companies,
AI companies. These are non tangible things.
How can these folks, people, people in technology, think
about branding and the strategicenemy and so on?
I just showed my example of, of,of working with the, you know,

(43:28):
development firm. Being able to kind of visualize
the strategy is important, right?
So you have to take something that's, you know, service and,
and find a way to visualize it. If you can, you know, use words,
you know, development on on demand was a good way to hook
in, you know, because people know what on demand is.
And now this is development on to the on demand.

(43:50):
So you hook into what the mind knows, and bringing in what your
new category idea is. Using words that can be
visualized is incredibly helpful.
And of course, as you were describing earlier with
Salesforce.com, they latched onto this, no software.
Yeah, and and you can also thinkabout say Red Hat, right.

(44:12):
So they were open source, but they gave them selves a name
that could be visualized. So that was a very helpful part
of the strategy. And what does a Red Hat have to
do with it? But it's different, right?
It stands out. And so it was the being first
pioneering the category, dominating that category and
having a way to visualize it. Or you think about a name like

(44:33):
Robin Hood, right, of a way to, you know, go against for the
individual traders. And you know, Robin Hood is a
great way and a great name that lends itself to an idea to
connect in of what you're tryingto accomplish and a name that
can be visual with a color too, right?
Green. Now, what about branding for
individuals creating a personal brand?

(44:54):
Many of the people who watch CXOtalk are senior business
leaders, technology leaders, andmany of them want to build their
personal brand. So they go on to LinkedIn and
they write and they respond. So what can individuals do to
build a personal brand? They have to think about what
their focus is. What do they want to be the

(45:15):
expert in? Yeah, I mean, many people are
good at a lot of things. But like, for me, I talk.
I mean, positioning is my anchor, right?
That's that's my thing. I also then visualize it.
As a matter of fact, I always wear red.
A way to to stand out and be visual, visually memorable.
But if you think about your brand, I mean, what is it?
What am I the very best at? How can I distinguish myself and

(45:37):
then have a point of view when I'm making comments, right?
Whatever, you know, angle that is to the hand, have the
repetition of that's where your strength is.
Now, of course, the people that know you will know you have a
great breath, but how are you going to stand out out there?
It is about having that singularfocus.
And the other thing is, you know, strong companies today
also need leaders that are memorable.

(45:59):
And, you know, having a leader that can best articulate the
company's position as well as keeping the company focused.
You know, NVIDIA is a whole chapter in my in my book,
because they've done such a great job with positioning, with
focus, with going up against multiple strategic enemies over
the years and always finding a way to do the opposite, to be
different. And then having a leader like

(46:20):
Jensen Huang, who, what does he do for no, only 20 years, he's
wearing that black leather Jack,you know, jacket.
Now, It's not the jacket that makes him cool.
It's the success of NVIDIA and then him and the jacket.
It is what symbolizes it. Like Steve Jobs and the the
black turtleneck. The black turtleneck isn't what
did it. It was Steve Jobs and what he

(46:41):
did at Apple. And then that look is what
represented it. Now you can't put on, you know,
the Thera nose girl, she tried to put on a black turtleneck to,
you know, show everyone she was innovative.
It doesn't work that way. You actually have to accomplish
something 1st and then whatever you're wear becomes the
representation of it. No, it doesn't have to be.
It could be your glasses, it could be a hat, it could could

(47:04):
be a bald head. It could be, you know, we had a
mayor here that were a big flower bouquet, you know,
whenever she talked in press interviews.
So it could be many things. But having that, you know,
distinction and having somethingthat is, you know, repeated can
be very helpful. Years ago got glasses of this
shape and when I go to conferences and so forth or give

(47:25):
a talk, people say, you know, they recognize me because I'm
wearing the glasses. Most people change their glasses
every time, right? They change the with the
fashions and and look at Anna Wintour of Vogue.
Vogue is focused on fashion. What is fashion but change?
Yet her look never changed, right?
The Bob with the glasses, it's always the same.

(47:47):
I mean, it shows that, you know,it's timeless fashion.
And so, yes, I mean, think about, you know, the power is
not that you wore those glasses for one year, but if you wore it
repeatedly and every time you get glasses, you limit yourself
to address that style. But that's the approach and that
takes courage. We.
Have another question from Twitter?

(48:08):
How can an incumbent combat a challenger, especially a new
disruptive entrance entrant? How will applying the strategic
enemy approach help? You got to take them seriously
early and that's the opportunityto get them in with your own
brand. If you think about the rise of
Red Bull, you know, brands don'ttake new categories like energy

(48:31):
drink. I mean, it feels like maybe it
was overnight, but it wasn't. It took 10 years for them to
reach $100 million. Coca-Cola doesn't get out of bed
for at least 100 if a market's until a market's $100 million.
But you know, when they finally woke up and tried to do
something, it was too late. Instead, you know, you've got to
get in there early and either long your new brand or go ahead

(48:51):
and buy them. I mean, what is the one of the
best things that Google did? They bought YouTube right away,
right? So, you know, doing that
understanding, you know, the power of that early or launching
your own brand is a great way togo it.
Now, what do most companies do? They wait too long and then they
launch line extensions. So Coca-Cola energy loser, tab

(49:12):
energy loser, even full throttlewas just you know, it was a me
too copy. It wasn't different and one of
the best brands that went up against Red Bull did it just by
being different. Everyone came in a small can,
not monster. They came in a 16 ounce can.
Now is that better? I don't know.
But it was different visually. And they they also then gave

(49:34):
themselves a good name, the green color, the claw Marks and
coke has done very well by investing in in monster.
So that's definitely a way. But you know, the biggest
temptation is the line extensiontrap and that's the worst way to
fight against these entrants. I mean, look at it was what what
has happened? Well, with Bud Light, I mean,
Bud Light has been watered down for decades.

(49:56):
I mean, they had Bud Light Lime,Bud Light arena, they got Bud
Light hard seltzer, Bud Light hard soda.
What's a Bud Light? I don't know it.
It's almost a meaningless brand,you know, at the turn of the
century, you know, initially if you go back in the Bureau, you
know, history, you know, you hadthe regular beer and that first
was Miller Lite, right? This new category of light beer

(50:18):
and really light beer and and regular beer were strategic
enemies. The problem was there were all
line extensions. It was very hard for them to
position against it. Light should have had a new
brand name and but at the turn of the century things were
changing and it was, you know, beer was now it wasn't just
light versus regular. You had a lot of new entrants.

(50:41):
As I mentioned, hard lemonade. You had the the Mexican
influence. You know, all the new enemies
were Mexican. They were hard, they were sweet,
they were alternatives. I think what Budweiser should
have done was lock together Bud and Bud Light to communicate,
you know, the ultimate, the kingof beer with the iconic, you

(51:02):
know, Budweiser imagery, the Clydesdales, all of these things
together. Instead of line extending Bud
Light, do what Coca-Cola has done.
You know, recently they've combined both the, you know,
regular sugar version with theirzero version and one red, you
know, umbrella color that unifies them together because
Coke today is not really, they're not fighting Pepsi.

(51:23):
Coke is fighting energy drinks and water and all the
alternatives. So together, I think you know
Coke in full sugar, full sugar or you know no sugar is stronger
together in fighting those enemies.
Why are lion extensions such a tempting trap?
Well, because logically they make sense.
We put this brand everyone knowsand loves and we extended on

(51:47):
something else and and we'll getyou know, you know, we'll
leverage that extension. But the problem is the mind
doesn't think like that. The mind thinks category 1st.
And so when you go to the store and you say I'd like a, you
know, a hard seltzer, you don't think, do I?
You know, you think I want AI want a White Claw, right?
You don't go and think I want a Bud Light.

(52:08):
Do I want a Bud Light 0? Do I want a Bud Light seltzer?
Do I want a Bud Light beer? It's the category first.
So when you put your brand name on multiple categories, it
undermines the power of your brand name standing for
representing and dominating the category itself.
So it's a it's a very, very, very important principle.

(52:29):
In fact, I say today the strategic enemy of positioning
is line extension because it canbe, you know, set so
detrimental, especially when youface focus competitors.
Here's the thing. All of the light beers were all
line extensions And as a result,the leading beer, Bud Light was
the winner because they didn't face a focus competitor.

(52:49):
So in that case it worked. But today there's always, in
most cases focus competition. So your better strategy new
brands for new categories. It's temting for these
companies, folks working in these companies, to fall back
into logic rather than understanding perception and

(53:10):
psychology. You think about what did Coke
do? They launched a product called
Coke Life because they saw people were they didn't want the
sugar, they didn't want the artificial sweeteners.
We're going to launch Coke Life,right?
It'll use our brand, we're goingto make it green so they know
it's different and it's going tohave stevia and cane sugar.
But what does that do to the mind?
First of all, it says your regular product sucks.

(53:32):
I mean, maybe it's perceived nowas Coke death, right?
If this is Coke Life, what is what is regular Coke?
I mean, it makes your own product look bad.
I mean, that's a very dangerous perception thing to mess with.
It also wasn't very successful either because if you, you know,
it wasn't the real thing. It was in green.
And so, you know, that is a, youknow, it was a category
opportunity, but it wasn't goingto be successful with the line

(53:55):
extension because today who do we see are the winners?
Poppy and Lollipop, These are brands that stand for a
healthier soda, right? They have prebiotics, they have
fiber, but it also is that, you know, stevia, cane sugar sort of
mixture. It is a popular idea, but it's
best done with a new name for that new category.
What advice do you have for podcasts like CXO Talk?

(54:19):
All right, well, you want to stand for something you want to
say exactly. You know what topic you're going
to cover, who the, you know, whoyour audience is.
I mean, having that narrow focusto be able to differentiate from
what you're not going to hear. I think many times people are
focused on telling people what we do, what we do, but what
aren't we going to do? What aren't we going to talk
about on this podcast? Let's remember that.
And that's an important way to make your brand memorable.

(54:41):
Well, Laura Reese, thank you so much for taking time to speak
with us today. It's been very, very eye
opening, this world of branding as you express it.
Well, it is so fun to be here talking about my favorite topic.
And everybody, thank you for listening.
Before you go, subscribe to the CXO Talk newsletter so we can

(55:07):
notify you about upcoming shows.Our shows are live and you can
ask questions of the guest. We have amazing guests coming
up. So go to cxotalk.com, check it
out, and we'll see you again next time.
Thanks so much everybody and hope you have a great day.

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How to Make Your Brand Stand Out FAST | CXOTalk #893

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