Category: Branding

In the words of David Ogilvy, “The most important decision is how to position your product.” But how do we make that decision? When we’re developing a brand position, we always measure it by three criteria: It has to be true, it has to be unique and it has to be compelling. In this post, I’ll cover “compelling.”

A brand promise can be true and unique, but if consumers don’t care about it, then you won’t make any sales. So, how do we find out—before your message is plastered all over the marketplace—if it’s compelling to your customers?

By doing research. Lots of it. This is especially important in senior living, where the media constantly tells us what the next generation wants and needs. We can’t just paint this demographic with a broad brush. We need to know what prospective customers in your market want.

That’s where interviews, focus groups and other check-ins become really important. Sometimes clients don’t think they need to talk to consumers because they already know what they’ll say. But we can find nuggets of great value amidst the things we already know. And these insights can help craft a message that customers find truly compelling.

When our team is working with a client to develop a brand position, we run it through a three-part filter and ask: Is it true? Is it unique? And is it compelling? In this post, I’ll cover “unique,” and why it’s so important to land on a unique selling proposition (USP).

The USP is a concept developed by advertising legend Rosser Reeves for Ted Bates back in the ‘40s. Quite simply, it means finding the one promise you can make that the competition can’t.

The USP is as relevant today as it was back then. In fact, Michael Porter put a twist on the USP with his philosophy, “Aim to be unique, not the best.” At Varsity, we agree with that thinking. Our team is always searching for that core truth that makes a client unique in the marketplace.

It’s not easy to find a benefit that separates your organization from the rest, but it’s critical to do so. That uniqueness doesn’t have to be related to a physical structure or amenities. It can be intangible, like an attitude, a personality or an entire culture.

Even when you find a brand position that’s true and unique, it still won’t connect with your customers unless they find it compelling. I’ll cover that in a future post.

Managing a successful organization has never been easy, but given today’s rapidly evolving changes, the leadership challenge, at least for most of us, is greater than ever.  Pressures from a variety of stakeholder groups compete for our time, attention and resources. More than ever, distractions seem to intercept our good intentions. Results—favorable ones—don’t occur without a plan. Exceptional results happen only when the plan is well executed. Unfortunately, too many of us invest far more time in developing the plan than in managing or executing the plan.

More Than an Exercise

Strategic planning is a discipline that should be logical, practical and manageable. Many of the plans I review these days seemingly lack depth and evoke far too little action. Now that we have adopted the concept of strategic planning, let’s ensure we introduce plans to our teams that produce the desired results.  Planning should become integrated into our patterns of management at all layers of the organization, not simply an exercise for the board and a few select executives.

Missing Components

Two areas of planning I recommend consistently including in your strategic planning process are innovation and culture. Certainly these areas are difficult to articulate, but they are crucial to your success in driving the desired results. Whether you are competing for residents or employees, your ability to establish objectives for enhancing the culture in which your services are delivered creates a competitive advantage. In great work cultures, great ideas can come from any team member in any department. Setting the tone for culture is the foundation to creating a more innovative environment in which people want to contribute.

Monitoring Success

People want to know how their performance stacks up against expectations. Routine reporting on key accomplishments against the plan is often missing beyond the executive suite. Success happens when the entire organization is aware of the strategic plan as well as how they are doing in completing the objectives driven by that plan. Measuring and communicating success is more than simply crafting an email or printing a newsletter. Engaged teams want a personal account from leadership on how well they are achieving the goals for the organization.

Link to Performance

Is your organization performing at its absolute best? Why or why not? Is your strategic plan a living document embraced by your entire organization, or something that occupies space on your shelf only to be discussed at board meetings? Are you winning the “war for talent”—are the brightest people coming to work at your organization?

It is no longer enough to be good at anything—consumer expectations for your brand are high. If your organization is performing at a level that doesn’t create “wowed” customers, your plan needs work, and your executional tactics need attention. The journey of successful strategic planning and organizational performance must get your attention daily.

It’s a good week for “timeless female empowerment.” Blanche, Sophia, Dorothy, Rose, Baddie and Mylie are all in the spotlight.

At Varsity, we’re major fans of the Golden Girls, and we’ve covered their innovative living situation in a previous blog post. That’s why we’re so excited about the news that a proposed Legos set featuring the groundbreaking ’80s sitcom is moving through the review process. The project, created by longtime “Golden Girls” fan Samuel Hatmaker, has now gathered 10,000 supporters, which means it qualifies for Lego review and has a chance to be produced. The story was all over social media and got picked up by USA Today, TVWeek, Ellen, Huffington Post and other news outlets.

Another ageless female also received a golden opportunity. On April 6, DimepieceLA, a chic street-style fashion brand, announced that 86-year-old grandmother Baddie Winkle will be featured in the new Dimepiece “state of mind” campaign. On the Dimepiece blog, the company announced, “Our brand has always stood for timeless female empowerment and continues to encourage this mindset in our latest campaign.”

Baddie has 745,000 Instagram followers, and one of her biggest admirers is Millennial megastar Miley Cyrus. Miley is such a huge Baddie fan that she photoshopped herself into one of the Dimepiece pool-site fashion shots and posted it on her Instagram page. Here’s to powerful females of all ages.

“Once upon a time…” The phrase takes many of us back to our childhoods. It brings back memories of snuggling under the covers as a parent told us a bedtime story, or sitting cross-legged on the classroom floor as the teacher read out loud. We listened raptly, wondering where the story would take us next. Even as adults, we love stories and the journeys they take us on. It’s stories that grab our attention and keep it.

Consumers love stories, too. They enjoy learning about the history of a company and where it is going next. In college, I learned about the marketing concept “what’s in it for me?” and how important it was to answer that question through storytelling. That was close to 25 years ago, and the idea remains as strong now as it was then.

Our culture has been handed down for centuries through the oral tradition of storytelling. It’s in our nature to tell stories. People love to relate an anecdote when friends ask them about a purchase they’ve made. So, if you share a story about your own product with your customers, you’ll reap the benefits of having it passed on to others. This process is how a good story can grow and develop a life of its own.

Creating a story about your brand is a great way to let your customers know who you are and what you stand for. It’s through this narrative that you gain their interest and, more importantly, their trust. It doesn’t need to be some huge tome, telling them every little thing about your brand. It just needs to be enough to give them a taste, make them want more and, most importantly, help them remember you and your product.

In addition to my career in advertising and marketing, I’ve spent the last 15 years making and selling my own artwork. My customers love to hear the story behind each of my pieces. Even if they don’t buy anything, I tell them the story about my studio name. I can’t tell you how many people come back and say, “I remember you and that interesting story of how your studio got to be called ‘Kerensamere.’”

In this digital age, one might think that storytelling is dead, but that is simply not the case. If anything, storytelling is prevalent in our society now more than ever. Online videos are a great example of storytelling. It’s amazing how one well-crafted video can tell so much in such a brief time. Make it a good one, and it goes viral. Next thing you know, everyone is telling your story for you.

Not everyone is a good storyteller. Back in the Middle Ages, communities relied on bards to come to town and recite stories. Not just anyone could be a bard; it took a certain skill. It’s kind of like the difference between a person who’s good at telling jokes, and one who isn’t. If it’s not told right, the joke falls flat. You don’t want this to happen with your own brand story. That’s where hiring the right team can make all the difference in how well your story is told and retold.

Crafting and presenting your story is a skill that comes with practice and insight. You need to understand your own brand as well as your audience. What is it that you want people to know? How do you get them to care about your story? This is where hiring a team like Varsity comes into play. We pride ourselves in our ability to create brand narratives that tell your story to the people you want to hear it and get them to repeat it for you.

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

“What’s in a name?” This line from Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet” has sparked a debate that has lasted for centuries. How important is a name—whether you’re a person, a business or a Continuing Care Retirement Community?

According to a Forbes article, four signs of a great business name are that you can pronounce it, it’s not too long, it’s straightforward, and it’s catchy. “Continuing Care Retirement Community” falls short on at least two of those fronts.

That’s one reason for “CCRC NameStorm.” In this national study, a task force is researching perceptions of the label “Continuing Care Retirement Community” and investigating alternative wording that would describe our communities more accurately—and appealingly. Varsity is on the NameStorm task force, along with LeadingAge, Mather Lifeways, GlynnDevins, SB&A, Brooks Adams Research, and Love & Co.

In the NameStorm study, quantitative and qualitative research is being conducted across the country with CCRC residents, prospects and staff as well as the community at-large.

If you plan on going to LeadingAge PEAK in Washington, D.C., March 16-18, 2015, we encourage you to attend a special session about CCRC NameStorm: “What’s in a Name: a Look at the CCRC Label,” which will provide insights on the current progress of this study.

The term “Continuing Care Retirement Community” was coined quite a few years ago when this type of organization was just taking shape. Now the senior living industry is seeing the next generation of retirees react negatively to an idea of a “care” facility.

I’m sure you have experienced that negative reaction, just as we at Varsity have. Part of the issue is that the CCRC label is focused on only one piece of the story—the care piece. It’s easy for the active Boomer retiree to say, “this isn’t for me.”

As part of CCRC NameStorm, we have conducted focus groups with prospective and current resident groups at Homestead Village, a community in the heart of Lancaster County in central PA. We’re thankful to our very good clients in one of the country’s most densely populated CCRC markets for opening their doors and sharing their honest opinions. So far, we’ve found that people are excited about the possibility of a name change, but it’s a change that needs to be carefully considered. (Remember Radio Shack becoming “The Shack”?)

This will be an ongoing discussion, and it will certainly be an interesting one. We hope you can make it for the session at LeadingAge. If not, check back on the Varsity blog. We’ll be continuing to post the progress of the NameStorm study.

In senior living, branding can be particularly challenging because many of the amenities and offerings, can, on the surface, run the risk of sounding a bit similar. The community that hasn’t identified the most unique aspects of its culture may miss out on an opportunity to truly tell its story.

That’s why it’s important to find unique qualities that the community can hang its hat on: What is it about the residents and the staff that can be used to identify a brand that stands out in the marketplace?

To differentiate among communities, we need to look beneath the surface. How do the residents live? How do they interact with staff? What led them to choose this place over their other options? What happens organically within the community that gives it life? It could be a special group that maintains the trails or goes out into the community to volunteer. It could be the difference between a library and an active book group led by residents.

Delving into the details is critical because branding is not about assigning a personality to your client, it is about discovering the one that already exists, then helping the client to own it, live it and encourage others to become a part of it. It’s not just about a logo or a tagline. It’s a promise that a community that can make to its prospective residents that no other competitor can deliver on.

For me, as a designer by background and a creative director by trade, design and advertising are definitely part of the expression. They are the face of the brand seen in the website, the outdoor board along the highway and the sign out front. This face helps define the brand’s personality and its values. It expresses the brand in a way that is meaningful and a source of pride within the community.

But the advertising and design are only meaningful if they come from a place of truth. It’s important to dig deep into a community’s stories, identify genuine benefits that everyone can recognize as authentic, and then work consciously to expand on them to set the community apart.

The reward of finding that niche and having management, staff and residents embrace it is watching energy and excitement permeate the community as its brand comes to life.