Brand Matters : Think Sideways

Find inspiration by taking a brand field trip

It’s time to get out. Out of your cubicle. Out of your home office. Out of your company’s groupthink. Out of your industry’s bigger groupthink. Just get out. It’s time to get sideways. You’ll be amazed at what a little outside thinking can do to rattle your inside perspectives.

Did the upside-down ketchup bottle in the fridge door inspire Target’s new color-coded prescription bottles? I will never know for sure, but I do know these product development designers and creators weren’t simply looking at their companies’ previous models and trying to create more of the same. They got out. They looked up. They looked down. They looked sideways. They connected dots from outside their industries and brought that thinking into their own in revolutionary ways.

Author John le Carré wrote: “A desk is a dangerous place from which to watch the world.” So, let’s get up and take a walk around a few industries and window-shop into their brands. Let’s see if we can learn a few things we can bring back to our tasks at hand.

Plant Dreams
For total freedom and independence, there’s nothing like a stop at the local Harley-Davidson dealer to find inspiration. I always have learned a great deal from this brand, and I continue to admire its gusty moves.

Business innovators like Tom Peters, Seth Godin and Mary Lou Quinlan have been advising companies across many spectrums to take women seriously for years. Harley is one that does. While women account for just 12 percent of sales, Harley believes that number has nowhere to go but up.

A few years ago, it started “Garage Parties”—an unusual but contemporary and ingenious twist on Tupperware parties. Harley dedicates a significant part of its Web site to these events and invites women only to these get-togethers, which “offer fun, basic instruction for non-riders who have little—or even no—prior knowledge of motorcycles.” And, most recently, Harley declared this May as the first-ever Women Riders Month, a chance to “honor all the women who enjoy the freedom and adventure found in taking control of their own handlebars.”

Harley-Davidson also launched a limited new promotion that gives away Harley rings (designed by Karen Davidson, great-granddaughter of one of the company’s founders, and inscribed with “Live to Ride. Ride to Live”) to women who buy a new bike and graduate from the Rider’s Edge training program. The ring, while fashionable in its own right, is also a great symbol of conquering a fear and is a proud badge of independence. These parties and programs both plant dreams and help women who want to own their own bikes, but feel a bit intimidated, conquer that fear. Brilliant marketing: plant dreams and quell fears.

Create Desire
Next stop on our window-shopping tour is your favorite bookseller, discount store or wherever books are sold, because that is where you’ll find whatever book everyone is buzzing about. Whether it’s the current surprise seller, “The Shack,” or the event-driven books on President Barack Obama (and Abraham Lincoln biographies), even nonreaders can’t miss these sensations.

Author J.K. Rowling’s last Harry Potter book (and the other six) was both a marketer’s and a reader’s dream. Even if you aren’t a fan, you couldn’t have missed the preselling frenzy of “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.” It was extraordinary. Pajama parties at midnight were held at many local independent bookstores, and sales records were set at online retailers, book stores and other nontraditional outlets. It seemed as if the whole world was waiting for Harry.

Loosen Up
Now, let’s watch a few commercials. Even if you are a Tivo addict, you couldn’t have missed the quirky characters at Aflac and GEICO. Talking ducks. A “modern-age” caveman. Serious products and services not taking themselves too seriously. Campaigns that won awards and more importantly, produced results.

Is your brand too uptight? Do you take yourselves too seriously? How can you let go and give up some control? Kelly Mooney, in her book, “The Open Brand,” asks the question, “Are you dangerously closed?” If so, how can your brand open up? Maybe even poke a little fun at yourself?

The wine industry is a great example of one that has humbled itself over recent years. The snooty factor still exists, but the fun factor has sold a great deal more wine. Labels like Mad Housewife or Mommy’s Time Out, or even Harley’s V-Twin Zin, spark sales and conversations.

Encourage Treasure Hunting
Let’s go into Whole Foods. Here, grocery shopping is no longer a chore. Walking into the store is like walking into a local farmer’s market at peak season, only to turn the corner and be in a beautiful flower shop and then turn around again to find yourself at your favorite deli, cheese bar and olive bar, all in one. It’s mastered the concept of “treasure hunt” first documented by Michael J. Silverstein in a book of the same name, while adding the sensory delight of feasting on samples of exotic and organic foods. Your shopping cart becomes a picnic basket, a gourmet treasure chest waiting to be placed into your home pantry.

Anthropologie gets this, especially in its store designs. It is a sophisticated flea market of artsy finds that encourages the joy of discovery. You turn around and see china plates and funky fashions, then turn sideways to see eclectic books and vintage signs.

Back to the desk. Hopefully this little field trip inspired your soul and gave you some outside-in thinking for whatever you might be working on next. Dan Zadra wrote, “Imitators copy an idea; innovators build on it.” So, go wander and ramble and linger. See what sideways thinking can do for you and your brand!

Andrea Syverson is president of IER Partners, a strategic consulting company specializing in innovative brand and merchandising directions. She may be reached at asyverson@ierpartners.com.