This week our guest expert is Susan Gunelius, author of Harry Potter: The Story of a Global Business Phenomenon.

1. In your new book you analyze the Harry Potter phenomenon. What part did the personal story of J.K. Rowling play in the success of the book?

J.K. Rowling’s personal story actually played a big part in the initial success of the Harry Potter brand.  Her rags-to-riches Cinderella story was a goldmine for the press who ate it up and spit it back out to anyone who would listen.  As the brand grew, more and more people became intrigued by the first-time author/poverty-stricken single mother who wrote a book that so many people were talking about, thus generating more word of mouth marketing and more sales, but without that initial attention from the press, the brand may not have taken off the way it did.  We’ll never know.

I didn’t realize when I first started researching Harry Potter that the online buzz played such a significant role in the success of the brand.  Blogs were just starting out when Harry Potter began picking up steam.  At a time when most companies and brands were trying to crush that type of citizen journalism, J.K. Rowling and Scholastic embraced it.  Of course, their first reaction was to bring lawsuits against bloggers and fan sites, but they quickly realized that the power of what would eventually come to be known as the social web was too big to turn their backs on.  By letting the online conversation grow and flourish, the brand did, too.  In other words, by letting consumers experience the brands in their own ways, talk about it, and live it, the brand thrived beyond anyone’s expectations.

3. Is there also a lesson about the unexpected benefits of blogging that you can share here?

This goes back to the power of the social web and the early recognition by J.K. Rowling and Scholastic of the power of the online buzz that played a big part in the ultimate success of the Harry Potter brand.  Companies and brands are still not 100% supportive of bloggers, but they can hold an enormous amount of influence.  The success of Harry Potter by way of a strong online buzz, fueled primarily by bloggers and fan sites, is evidence of that.

4. What is your take on the Motrin Moms controversy?

As the mother of 4-year old triplets, I can say without a doubt that I don’t carry my kids as a “fashion accessory” as that Motrin ad implied.  With that said, I think the controversy is another example of the power of the social web wherein a vocal few can influence many (you know the old phrase, “the squeaky wheel gets the oil,” regardless of how right or wrong that is).  It goes back to the old shampoo commercial from the 1970s, “and she told two friends, and she told two friends, and so on, and so on, and so on…,”  The only difference is that today messages travel much faster, and influential bloggers, whose posts get syndicated, appear high in search rankings, etc., have the ability to reach a broad audience very quickly.  Marketers have to be careful to be politically correct these days, to a point where it’s nearly impossible not to offend someone.  It’s a challenge that’s far more difficult today with the existence of the social web than it was even a decade ago.

5. What is your favorite online marketing initiative right now?

The first one that popped into my mind is one that I just wrote a blog post on my company blog this week .  It’s about the new JCPenney viral video, Beware of the Doghouse.  The video and corresponding website were created to support the JCPenney in-store jewelry center.  The video is funny and timely, and the interactive website is really amusing.

6. What did you learn as a marketer from the U.S. Presidential campaign?

Branding consistency and inclusive marketing are more important than ever.  I wrote a post about that on my blog, too.

7. 3 Tips for Entrepreneurs in a recession?

To build business - keep networking (online and offline).  To save money - ditch your website and replace it with a Wordpress CMS site and use freelancers and open source applications.

8. One book in addition to Harry Potter: The Story of a Global Business Phenomenon that you’d recommend?

My copywriting book, Kick-ass Copywriting in 10 Easy Steps.

9. One online resource you could not do without?

Google - I use it for so much - search, email, applications, Alerts, Reader, YouTube, AdSense, AdWords - you name it.

10. Your favorite brand for the month?

I’ve been on an Apple kick lately.  It’s such a great example of relationship branding and societal branding.  I even fell victim to Apple’s marketing messages and got a Mac a couple of months ago.  Now, if only I could get an iPhone without AT&T as the carrier, but that’s another story, entirely.

Brand: Routan (Volkswagen)
Execution: TV, Online, Print
Target: Parents
Rating: ***
Reviewer: David Vinjamuri

Description:
To promote its new minivan, the Routan, Volkswagen agency Crispin, Porter + Bogusky created a mock-documentary featuring Brooke Shields entitled “Routan Boom.”  The four-minute online documentary anchors a campaign also featuring tv spots and print ads.  The premise of the documentary is that couples are having children just to have an excuse to get the “German engineering” found in the Routan.  The various couples Brooke Shields approaches all deny this, but she is unconvinced.

What Works:
This campaign brims with ironic humor.  Brooke Shields excels in her deadpan impersonation of a documentary reporter unflustered by the lack of any real story.  It is very difficult to imagine many spots for a minivan having any interest past the core viewership of parents currently shopping for a new car, but this spot expands the pool.  It has been successful in drawing some media attention and blog posts.

What Doesn’t:
The premise of the spot may have a fatal flaw.  As Autoblog notes, “It’s likely that the Routan is a perfectly fine minivan, maybe even markedly better than the Dodge Caravan and Chrysler Town and Country, but does VW honestly think people won’t realize it’s true origins?”  Premising an advertising campaign - even a satirical one - on a factually incorrect concept is deceptive and will not help Volkswagen in a time of great hostility to automakers.

Branding Bottom Line:
The Volkswagen Routan is actually Mili Vanili.

Brand: Microsoft
Execution: TV
Target: Mac-vulnerable PC Users
Rating: **
Reviewer: David Vinjamuri

Description:
Microsoft’s new Crispin Porter & Bogusky advertising continues with a new campaign intended to show the diversity of PC users.  “I’m a PC and I’ve been made into a stereotype” is the opening line of the spot, delivered by a John Hodgman lookalike (Hodgman is the actor who plays the PC in the “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” spots by Apple).  The spot then progresses to showing a variety of people, from celebrities like Eva Longoria and Deepak Chopra to astronauts, scuba divers and ordinary people.

What Works:
This is a very interesting attempt to take a common political campaign tactic and bring it to the consumer arena.  The tactic is the “Checkers” ad (from Nixon who once complained that the press was so vicious that they were attacking the gift of a cocker spaniel to his daughters) which complains that the opponent is running a dirty campaign and smearing the candidate.  This type of ad is also a negative ad, of course, as it attempts to impugn the character of the opponent.  Microsoft here is trying to turn the tables on Apple’s successful anti-PC campaign by showing that every type of person uses PCs and that the Apple ads are unfair.

This advertising is far more focused than the brief but expensive campaign that preceded it featuring Bill Gates and Jerry Seinfeld.  These spots also feel crisper with better pacing.

What Doesn’t:
What you almost never see in political campaigns is a candidate who has the support of 90% of voters attacking a challenger with 10% support.  That’s exactly what’s happening here and it reflects the extent to which Apple’s unyielding campaign against Microsoft has rattled Redmond and caused them to respond.  This campaign is well-executed, but fundamentally misguided.  It adds credibility to Apple’s message by acknowledging it and will likely get some people wondering if there’s something to those Macs after all.

The campaign is also misguided because it tries to solve a strategic problem with advertising.  Windows Vista gave PC users something they were not asking for - a more elegant operating system that was less reliable than Windows XP.  This in itself was a reaction to Apple.  Microsoft should have ignored Apple and focused on a more elementary need of PC users - a faster, simpler and more flexible operating system which would be more reliable and adaptable than Windows XP.  Had Microsoft turned in this direction, Apple would have been irrelevant as a competitor.  They would have ceded the high end to Apple while digging a firmer foothold in the everyday world where 90% of computer usage happens.

As it is, Microsoft has given Apple a major strategic opportunity with the Vista debacle.  And now Microsoft is wasting nearly $800 million dollars trying to fix the strategic problem with advertising.  Add that to the $500 million already spent to advertise the Vista launch and you have enough money to accelerate the next generation operating system launch by several years.  Microsoft should stop letting Apple and Steve Jobs push them off of their game and create a “Windows lite.”  Then they can brag.

One last problem with the ads - and this is the only one that Crispin Porter is really responsible for - is that they lack permission to believe.  Watch the Apple campaign and you’ll see that each ad gives specific reasons that Apple is better than PC.  There are no specifics in this Microsoft campaign.

Branding Bottom Line:
There’s a reason that P&G greats like Dawn and Tide never mention competitors.  See you at the debates, PC bitches.

Jonathan Salem Baskin, author of Branding Only Works on Cattle, is fast becoming the new Bad Boy of Branding.  We don’t always agree with him, but we are certainly entertained by his unique and irreverent viewpoint.  We asked Jonathan ten questions that are vexing us right now:

1. What is the biggest problem with branding as it is practiced today?

   It’s mostly useless.  Branding is glorified awareness, if that, and it’s more notable for what it doesn’t do, like drive sales, support higher prices, or improve customer satisfaction.  For all the talk of engaging customers, branding is inward-looking; it addresses absolutes of what marketers want it to be, instead of getting applied to outwardly-relevant behaviors that are motivating to consumers

2. Is a brand really just a shortcut – a way for consumers to save time?  What does that mean for marketers?

   Not any longer.  Brand was info shorthand in the days when consumers didn’t have ready access to information a la the web, nor did they have the collective experience of having had their grandparents and parents targeted by aggressively inventive marketers.  Brand doesn’t fill gaps in knowledge anymore; it emerges from consumers, and is a collection of info, opinion, experience, and intent.  This means that marketers need to address the context of those moments in order to be relevant and useful.

3. Comment on Sarah Palin from a marketer’s standpoint

   Utterly brilliant.  And the potential voters’ remorse has a 4-year tenure with no requirement for effective customer service.  The point is to win an election, and reducing her to a simple USP is crass, smart marketing.
   

4. What is the worst ad you’ve seen this summer?  Why?

   The Korean Air campaign continues to befuddle me.  A man or woman stands against a mostly-white background with a slash of green-blue color, over which some nonsense text says nothing about airlines, flying, etc.  It makes absolutely no sense, although I’m sure it’s totally ‘on brand.’

5. What do you think of the hype over social networks?

   It’s hype.  The idea that we’d replace the ‘interruption model’ of advertising with the ‘distraction model’ of social media is rather laughable; pointless conversations are, well, pointless.  But seen as true communities wherein information is shared and vetted, I think social media can and will be a powerful tool for helping consumers define brands.  The challenge is to stop talking about “joining the conversation” and focusing instead on “giving it direction.”

6. Do you Twitter?

   Nope.  Ambient noise is still noise, to me.  And I can feel close to people I know without knowing that the cup of coffee they just got served isn’t hot enough.  As for the acquaintances I barely know, I’m comfortable barely knowing them.

7. Give us five brands to watch for 2009 …

   Microsoft: how will they waste more money?
   Google: how will they react as privacy and consumer groups realize they want to rule the world?
   B of A: how will it get Mainstreet America to invest hard-earned dollars in stocks?
   Sears/Kmart: how will the stores capture recession-conscious consumers who would otherwise go to WalMart?
   Apple: how will its competitors knock off its latest branding, and fail to understand it’s all about the interface?

8. One piece of advice for a new marketer?

   Think behavior.  If anybody tells you that something is ‘good for the brand,’ attach an active verb to it, and see if it makes sense in a sentence that begins “Our customers will do X which will yield Y…”
   

9. Finish the sentence:  If I were creative director of a NY Advertising Agency right now …

   …I’d figure out how to get creative about getting people to do things, not just think them.”

10. How will the end of Wall Street affect marketers?

    It’s not the end, just the beginning of a new phase.  The real impact of the Wall Street meltdown will be to further drag down the overall economy, and make corporate leaders scared to spend money.  This will mean lots of marketers…especially those purists who hold tenaciously to the abstractions of brand…will lose their jobs.

Brand: Meetup.com
Execution: Online Video + Viral e-mail
Target: The over-connected
Rating: ****
Reviewer: David Vinjamuri

Description:
The online site for personal meetings, Meetup.com has launched a new campaign aimed at getting the ’screen-addicted’ to leave the confines of their offices and meet other people in person.  The campaign features a claymation video in the style of  Wallace & Gromit.  It shows a lonely man obsessively updating his Facebook status (Q: What are you doing now? A: Updating my status) and IM’ing friends.  Then he sees the Meetup logo (which looks like a fill-in-the-blank event attendee sticker with the meetup name inside it).  He’s bedazzled and, sensing something behind the logo, stands on his chair and pries open his monitor.  There’s a long, dark tunnel behind it, which he crawls through resolutely.  Then he emerges (from his cave, we must assume) into the sunlight and fresh air, discovering a world of other people.

The viral campaign features a customizable “Intervention e-mail” that can be sent to a friend warning them of the dire consequences of their screen addiction in a sort of Madlibs fashion.

What Works:
This clever campaign comes to us from the low-profile but highly influential Meetup.com.  Meetup first gained attention in 2003 when the political campaign of Howard Dean used it to organize grassroot events through the Internet with great success (until his implosion in Iowa).  Meetup has continued to expand as a way for hockey-moms or photo enthusiasts or beagle lovers to meet each other in person, coordinating over the Internet.This advertising blog admires three things in this campaign:

1. Simplicity - Define the problem, illustrate the problem and solve the problem.  There is an elegant simplicity to both the concept and execution of this campaign.
2. Storytelling - As we frequently note, advertising works only when it offers immediate value to the user.  This viral video does so with an engaging story, told in a novel format for an ad.
3. Stickiness - Chip and Dan Heath might like this campaign because it offers a simple and engaging way to share the video.  The multiple choice e-mail is not a new tactic, but this is an amusing execution.

What Doesn’t:
The strength of the Meetup logo and website is also its weekness.  It is a clever pun on the anonymity that social encounters sometimes engender.  Meetup counters this by linking people through their passions, building communities of interest rather than necessity.  Sometime, though an execution of a meta-theme like this can be too clever by half.  While the campaign is excellent, the Meetup.com website seems too generic and perhaps not compelling enough on the home page.

Brand: True Blood (HBO)
Execution: Viral
Target: The Vampire Obsessed
Rating: *****
Reviewer: David Vinjamuri

Description:
To promote the new series “True Blood,” HBO drafted the agency Campfire to create an elaborate insider campaign.  Campfire sent 1,000 elaborate direct mailer pieces in May to vampire bloggers and “science fiction geeks” ( a good description of the program is on AdAge).  The mailer featured a message in an invented ancient language.  A few of the addressees had the necessary language or cryptography skills to translate the language (no Rosetta Stone needed, apparently) and it led them to a website, www.bloodcopy.com.  The website featured a gatekeeper (an actress) who would grant access only to those deemed “true vampires” after video chats.  She was instructed to be difficult to crack into, not easy.

What Works:
Brands often think that their task is to make it easy for everyone to find them.  For years Coca-Cola focused on the slogan “within an arm’s reach of desire” - the idea being to make Coke so easy to find that it was ubiquitous.  With the brand equity and resources of Coca-Cola, this might not be a bad idea, but it fails for many other brands.  HBO and Campfire take the opposite tack, one which resonates much more deeply with human nature: make it really, really tough to get inside and they will come.  They have harnessed the power of exclusivity.

What is brilliant about this campaign is that it is so focused, so precise and not at all interested in making sure that 99% of the target audience gets the message directly from the brand.  It offers a real challenge and doesn’t shrink from sustaining that challenge once the interested have found the brand (on the website).  There is real attention to detail in this campaign that gives it authenticity.

The results have been impressive - lots of youtube activity, press coverage and huge anticipation for the series.

What Doesn’t:
Was it J. Walter Thompson who said “Great advertising can kill a brand”?  The series really needs to live up to the promotion or HBO might find the well is dry the next time around.

Branding Bottom Line:
Campfire spins a tale that makes HBO go bump in the night.

Brand: Paris Hilton
Execution: Web Video
Target: The celebrity-obsessed
Rating: *****
Reviewer: David Vinjamuri

Description:
Paris Hilton today posted a video response to a Presidential campaign ad for Senator John McCain.  The McCain ad ad, aired last week and compared Senator Barack Obama to Paris Hilton and pop star Britney Spears.  The ad called Obama “the biggest celebrity in the world,” while displaying images of Obama in German, Hilton and Spears in an attempt to paint Obama as a celebrity rather than a true leader.  In the video response sponsored by Funny or Die, we see the same images of Obama in Germany, but the voiceover speaks insted of John McCain as the “oldest celebrity in the world - like super-old” and asks the same question - “Is he ready to lead?”  Then we see Paris Hilton in a skimpy swimsuit mocking both herself and McCain while declaring her own candidacy for President and then putting forward a surprising cogent energy proposal.

What Works:
Paris Hilton has an extraordinary sense of timing and a finely tuned radar for PR opportunities.  By taking advantage of a brief media flap over her unlikely connection to Barack Obama, Hilton has guaranteed herself another full news cycle and millions of earned media impressions on national news shows.  I found myself unwittingly part of this kerfuffle on Fox Business News this afternoon when an anchor brought up the ad following a discussion we were having about Whole Foods earnings.  After seeing the entire video, I had to agree that Paris Hilton got it exactly right, down to sounding well-schooled on policy when she moved off of the issue of “where to get the best tan.”The lesson for conventional brands here is to be agile.  Without Paris Hilton’s ability to respond to the McCain ad in just seven days, the opportunity for free PR would have been lost.  Most brands would find it impossible to craft and approve a clever spot in such a short time, let alone filming it.  But the benefits of taking advantage of opportunities like this are significant.  Witness the benefit Mentos yielded from the Mentos/Coke videos and how Coca-Cola failed to capitalize quickly enough.

What Doesn’t:
This advertising blog thinks the Paris Hilton response is entirely good for her brand, but it’s worth looking for a moment at the McCain ad for a moment.  Besides the unintended invitation for a smackdown by Paris Hilton, McCain violates important precepts of advertising in his campaign spot.  Attack ads are meant to put memorable images into the minds of voters.  Michael Dukakis was damaged by attack ads with graphic images of him looking very un-presidential in a tank among others.McCain’s ad has the opposite effect for Barack Obama.  It shows him addressing 250,000 people within sight of the Brandenburg gate in Berlin where the Berlin Wall stood.  While the language is meant to tear Obama down, the images make him look more presidential.  Which is not the point of competitive advertising at all.

Branding Bottom Line:
Forget President of the United States.  Paris Hilton ought to be running for CMO of General Motors.

Issue: Creative spam headlines start to look like good copywriting
Commentary by: David Vinjamuri

A few weeks ago, I began to notice spam.  Not that I hadn’t noticed it before; the way a horse notices swarming flies.   But this was different.  An e-mail with the subject “Obama Shot in Colorado” set my hairs on end.  I almost clicked before I noted the sender and realized it was spam.  On the same day, I received a valid e-mail from a newsletter that I’d signed up to with the title “Get Ready to Shop” - and almost marked it as spam.

Which raises the question - are spammers working harder for our attention than real marketers?  Have we surrendered creativity to the grinding data-consciousness of direct marketers (no offense)?   Have the spammers followed the adult entertainment marketers as the next generation of marketing innovators we will refuse to learn from?

Issue: Wal-Mart adopts a new logo
Commentary by: David Vinjamuri (additional commentary on Fox Business News)

It must be a slow week when a corporate logo change makes news, but that’s where we find ourselves with Walmart as it changes its logo for the first time in sixteen years.

The new logo has three distinguishing points from the old: first it removes the star that separated the ‘Wal’ from ‘Mart’ (a hyphen predated the star). Secondly, the new logo uses upper and lower case where all previous logos were all-caps. Finally, the new logo ads a starburst (or a six-pointed asterisk as we see it) at the end of the logo.

Wal-Mart’s press release sounds almost defensive on the logo update:

This update to the logo is simply a reflection of the refresh taking place inside our stores and our renewed sense of purpose to help people save money so they can live better.

This begs the question of the underlying brand strategy - what is Walmart hoping to accomplish? The answer seems regrettably clear. Walmart is in a strong competitive position given the downturn of the economy. They are using the opportunity to try to take market share from their competitors. Walmart believes that it “owns” working class families - they are value shoppers who are very loyal to Walmart. So the new logo, new tagline, new outfits for employees and freshened store layouts reflect Walmart’s desire to lure upscale customers from Target.

This is a reasonable goal but Walmart is pursuing it in the wrong way. The new logo with a six pointed star at the end (which bears an unfortunate resemblance to an asterisk) reminds us of nothing as much as Target’s logo with the bullseye. The new slogan: “Save Money. Live Better” does have the advantage of reaching an end benefit. But compare it to “Always Low Prices” and you’ll see that it again positions Walmart against Target’s lifestyle marketing.

To be successful, Walmart must stand for working families and focus on offering good products at the lowest everyday prices. When Walmart walks away from this mission it does so at its peril.

Walmart may replace logos and slogans but it should not replace the important mission it created - one which lifted the standard of living for millions of middle class families around the U.S.

Branding Bottom Line: Walmart gets a nice new logo *
* (but it reminds us a lot of Target)

Brand: Baby Einstein (Disney)
Execution: TV
Target: First time Moms
Rating: **
Reviewer: David Vinjamuri

Description:
A testimonial-style commercial for Baby Einstein. The spot starts off showing the green door to a suburban house and superimposes “A Real Mom Talks About Baby Einstein DVDs” over the door. Then we meet Antonia and her son Hudson. Antonia talks about how much she likes Baby Einstein DVDs. As she speaks we see images from the DVDs as well as scenes of her playing with her sons both in an out-of-doors. The spot ends with a voiceover “Make new discoveries with Baby Einstein DVDs” and a product shot of the DVD lineup.

What Works:
If you buy the premise that you must advertise mass-distributed brands on mass media (and we do not), then this spot does the job as well as it can be done. It is not overly slick and would look equally comfortable if shown on a cable access channel. It speaks directly from one mom to others, just as the Baby Einstein videos do. It is fairly single-minded about the brand positioning “by a mom, for moms” which is the strongest positioning for the Baby Einstein product. It doesn’t splash the Disney name - a temptation that lesser marketers in large corporations might have succumbed to. It also is simple, uses strong images and has a good product shot and good branding.

What Doesn’t
I was particularly interested in reviewing this ad because I wrote a chapter of Accidental Branding about the Baby Einstein founder, Julie Clark. When Disney bought out Clark and took over the Baby Einstein brand, they did a good job of keeping the Disney name away from the product. But to make their return, they moved Baby Einstein into broader mainstream distribution and created spinoff products - everything from toys to sippy cups. This expanded the sales of the brand tremendously, but it also began to erode the expertise of Baby Einstein which had been narrowly focused on producing videos for babies.

Disney also started advertising the Baby Einstein brand. It was an unsurprising move, as Disney clearly wanted to bring mass marketing to Baby Einstein. I was very curious to see if they could pull this off, because the brand always struck me as a consummate ‘insider’ brand that thrives on personal recommendation. It is impossible to know if any mass media campaign might be clever enough to sell Baby Einstein without ruining the “it’s my secret” appeal of Baby Einstein, but this spot does not work. The ad straddles the unhappy line between diet supplement testimonial and infomercial. The production values are not bad but it still feels far less well crafted than the Baby Einstein videos themselves and clearly a corporate product.

Branding Bottom Line:
Baby Einstein reminds us we still want a set of Ginsu Knives.