The Perfect Brand

There are many elements that have to be in place in order to create the "perfect" brand. OK, so there's no such thing as perfection but it's always a great ideal to aspire to isn't it?

Sometimes getting a brand right is hard work, sometimes they just, well...work. And sometimes it's easy to see why they work: Virgin, Apple, Google and Nike, for example, have created indelibly positive marks on the global psyche. These are marks that always capture the public imagination without, perhaps, ever losing that "common touch". But they are all more than just pretty faces: all of them either create products that people want or they understand what people want and provide it...or both.

We have attempted to get under the skin of 5 brands for this issue: brands that were launched sometime between 1900 and late 2008. All very different brands from very diverse walks of life but who all have something to say. But however varied, we found that they all shared similar issues, concerns and aspirations. They also disagree sometimes but...that just makes it a little more interesting.

We'd like to thank all of our contributors for this issue and they are:

Alastair McLellan - Group Director and Editor, EMAP INFORM PUBLIC SECTOR and Editor, Nursing Times
Carl Ratcliff - Head of Brand Strategy and Marketing, FIVE
Andrew Huestis - Marketing Communications Director, TNT
Steve Purdham - CEO, We7
Joe Ferry - Head of Design, Virgin Atlantic

Brand strategy can be a difficult concept: most people have a fair grasp of what it means but many find it difficult to elucidate. Like most things in life; it's difficult to get right and very easy to get wrong. Indeed, it could be said that the issue has been a bit of an afterthought for some organisations in the past: if their brand succeeded then it could be attributable to luck rather than judgement. And given that they probably had fewer competitors no doubt helped too.

These days however, organisations - whether they are multinational-conglomerates, start-ups or SMEs have recognised the importance of a brand strategy. In other words that strategy has to be at the forefront of the organisation's thinking and it has to guide their collective professional behaviour. Indeed those principles need to be transferred to the forefront of their customers' minds: that is, if they want to be successful. So, if a company wants to be seen as, say, innovative then that has to come across through its products, advertising, customer service or even its reputation in the market, so, innovation becomes a clear value that gets attributed to the company. The issue can be seen as a building block: impress the individuals and that leads to a broader, positive, reputation. In this example, an innovative outlook and thinking leads to similar products delivered and sold in similarly creative ways.

But how should brand strategies be formulated? Should they be ongoing and dynamic? Should they be easy to encapsulate in a single sentence or paragraph or even a word? Is it a gamble to oversimplify them? Can they, or should they, define themselves? And, an all important question, will they increase profitability?

Clearly these issues need to be thought through and they also change from organisation to organisation. As you will see reading below; one size does definitely not fit all. Ultimately organisations can develop their own methods but, again as you will see, there are some strong similarities even if the language and approach changes somewhat.

Although ultimately every brand wants and needs to be successful, their strategies sometimes have to account for, and overcome, some very personal hurdles in order to set themselves up for that success. In the case of Nursing Times, its own strategy had to be re-thought once the government set up a free nursing recruitment website: a significant hurdle given that the magazine had historically made significant revenues from recruitment advertising.

However, the launch of the government recruitment website did allow Nursing Times to look closely at itself. Under the circumstances, and after 100 years, did it still have a valid offering? Were there any existing elements that it could still retain in order to successfully build a new brand upon?

Alastair Mclellan, Nursing Times' Editor, summarises the brand's overall objectives as:

"In the past, all we had to do to "win" was for a nurse to pick us up: it was a volume game. But now the government website takes away a lot of that volume. We needed to look carefully at our brand values and the way that we communicated them. There were some values that we needed to retain and some that we needed to change. Given that we'd been around a long time, longer than the NHS, it was important for us to retain the sense of heritage that the brand represented. Also we wanted to focus a lot on our independence, which distinguishes us from both the NHS and our competitor - which is owned by the Royal College of Nursing."

Perhaps, though, the most important lesson learnt by Nursing Times in terms of strategy objective was Alastair's team's realisation that in order to be successful the brand had to move away from being an "all encompassing brand" (very much like the NHS) to one that focused on quality content to a specific audience.

However, if the "quality content to a specific audience" principle works well at Nursing Times, the same cannot always be said for television, specifically FIVE. In relation to content, Carl Ratcliff, Head of Brand Strategy and Marketing at FIVE's view is:

"The brand strategy should be all encompassing and shouldn't be the preserve of just the marketing department: it should be the preserve of everyone. The reality with media companies is different, brands like Nike and Google are good at it, but when it comes to media companies, people still think that content is king, people still can't understand why if you make a great show, people still don't come and watch it and don't factor in things like reputation or connection, context. I talk about 'double jeopardy' which is the statistical phenomena of disproportionate gain that the market gets in a classic FMCG category and I think a similar thing happens in television, where BBC1 continues to be the biggest channel simply because it is the market leader, we get a disproportionate low share and I have seen this happen when we take shows previously shown on BBC1 such as Neighbours, that then start to lose volume, share and profile, so there is something happening there, and it's a brand issue I think."

But if the issue comes down to brand, does that mean that there is more loyalty to channel brands than loyalty to content? Carl doesn't seem so sure that it's brand loyalty per se:

"I don't know if there is brand loyalty: there's brand understanding, I think that's an important thing to reflect on and think about when you're acting as a custodian for a broadcast brand. What I mean by that is that people are able to understand and to project personality over and above the content onto the brand. So if I ask people to personify their thoughts on Channel 4 they are able to quickly. Broadly it warrants a personality of being mischievous and troublesome and being a "troublemaker" and that's interesting, people quite like that, BBC2 is often understood to be an intellectual, when you ask about FIVE you will probably struggle to personify it, to project any kind of understanding onto it, which is routed back to the lack or purpose I think. So there isn't really a loyalty as such, but there is an expectation, an association that people subscribe to".

So far, we’ve seen that brand strategies can sometimes be reactive to hurdles and sometimes lend themselves to strong personification. These issues are, of course, to a large extent market dictated. For example, FIVE can see a great benefit in personifying its strategy which would allow for a stronger connection with its audience whilst Nursing Times was able to rebuild itself once its market fundamentally changed. But, is there still scope for a relatively simple brand strategy? Andrew Huestis, TNT’s Marketing Communications Director seems to think so:

Our strategy is pretty simple really. It’s to strengthen our brand and help our business. We have a single brand that we want to strengthen because we have some pretty stiff competition (Fedex, DHL etc). Our objective is to differentiate and strengthen the brand. Towards the end of last year we launched a new brand position. It’s really all about “can do”. The tagline is “sure we can”. We launched it internally first and then launched it externally in September ‘08. It was a soft launch in that we did not launch it with any advertising campaign.

TNT’s “can do” strategy is very simple indeed and, given its business (and competition) that strategy gives a simple and easy to understand message to its customers...”sure we can”. But if it’s simple, does that necessarily make it believable? Is it aspirational or does it reflect the business? Andrew thinks that, despite the simplicity, there are various strands to the strategy that can make it effective:

“It’s probably a bit of both: aspirational and realistic. But we wanted it to be relevant and believable. Customer research tells us that it is believable, but that we also have room for improvement. I think it is also based on who we are. Although a brand consultant did a thorough evaluation on who we are as a company, speaking to many people throughout the company and reading all the customer research available, I believe he confirmed what we already knew; the common element that he found was our can do spirit. So “can do”/”sure we can” is based on who we are”

Simplicity, however, can be deceptive. Joe Ferry, Virgin Atlantic’s Head of Design feels that their brand strategy can be summed up very easily, but as he explains:

“(our brand strategy is) a simple thing but there’s a lot of hard work to make it look simple. We have values and the strategy is a combination of several areas that come together to portray the brand. So brand values are how we should behave and what our products and services should reflect. And the company strategy is to achieve a company manifesto. So it’s a parallel path of 2 elements: 1) the manifesto is to achieve what the company’s goals are (and) 2) we need to achieve those goals while living the brand and that’s where the brand values come in. So in terms of a brand strategy I think it’s important that we have enough flexibility to be innovative, to be maverick, and therefore to be able to respond quickly and champion the people as much as we can so a lot of it is almost integral into the working day of the majority of the employees.”

On a very different note, We7, an ad funded free music listening service funded by ex Genesis front-man Peter Gabriel amongst others, has a very different take on brand strategy. Steve Purdham, We7’s CEO explains the company’s brand strategy:

“It’s about recognition. It’s trying to ensure that whenever you do anything it has instant recognition; instant value and instant trust. The reasons are obvious: we want people to spend their pennies with us. From We7’s point of view our brand is simple: the ability to get great music for free. How that applies in the digital world is a much more complex story.

The brand itself almost follows the desire nowadays. At one time you had the big global brands (Coca Cola, BMW etc) then in those situations that has a massive value and massive appeal. When you are talking about a start-up the real value comes first from “is the service right for the consumer?” and the digital world is actually creating the situation where the brand follows the service as opposed to the brand driving the service. For example we launched 90 days ago...and with no brand recognition we’ve managed to get 500,000 users in less than 90 days. That actually created the brand and it becomes a cyclical thing so that the more people come, the more they talk about us and the reason for the growth is that we are delivering something that people want.”

What gives an organisation its personality? What separates one organisation from another? What makes Nike more attractive to some than Reebok? Why do you choose one telco over another? It can't be just because one has a more attractive logo than the other? Or maybe it is.

The real answer to those questions is probably more in line with a customer's expectations. It may even be because they've had a bad experience with a competitor. But, for whatever reason, the chances are that the organisation's brand values play a strong part in building a connection. Although it's probably not explicitly so in all cases: it's unlikely that someone will, say, choose Virgin because they felt they are always "fun" but you can be sure that this particular element - perhaps combined with a few others - will be at play in any of Virgin's touch-points.

Most organisations have a set of brand values that are tailored to guide their output, customer service, general behaviour etc. Having said that, it's not a given that values always exist as such: FIVE's Carl Ratcliff appears to shy away from them:

"I think that that whole notion of having 3 or 4 words that sit in a box which explain exactly what you mean are bollocks, no one uses them outside of marketing, they are kind of self serving for marketers but aren't applicable and a great brand strategy should be applicable, if it isn't then what's the point?... so I believe in the power of words and I believe in having something very simple that distils your brand ambition or behaviour, for us it's about being the most colourful public service broadcaster, there are some other words that I try to lean on when judging work, such as feeling contemporary or modern etc, but they are broadly generic, so I don't really have any values, I don't have any brand onions, I don't have any brand hierarchies or triangles, I have a sentiment in my head, an ambition that is very short and crisp..."

Perhaps the issue changes from organisation to organisation. Perhaps it's different in context of a TV channel where the output isn't a single entity (such as a magazine) but a whole raft of programmes and in that case the viewer needs to connect with the channel in the same way that they would connect with an acquaintance, colleague or friend: in other words an "edgy" or "innovative" person produces likewise and a "safe" person is also reflective of that "caution" in their output. Nonetheless, it's still pretty difficult to escape (brand) adjectives (or a "sentiment" as Carl puts it).

Whether you have a set of values or a sentiment, however, the key thing is how that message, or messages, carry through the organisation. Depending on the organisation, internally communicating the message can present one of the greatest challenges: it's one thing to identify your personality but it's another to ensure that the entire company is "on message".

In some cases, the values most probably existed from the outset but, as was the case with Virgin, they still needed to be formalised at a later date. Joe Ferry explains that their values:

"...were defined in the late 90s. So 1998 or 1999 is when we wrote them down. A lot of the spirit of the Virgin brand is based on the people that we've employed. We've been going for 25 years and probably for the first 10 it was just about employing the right people that just got on and did it and were quite maverick and just almost by osmosis the brand evolved into being a very energetic, powerful and innovative brand and I think it was only in the late 90s when people sat down and said we are expanding, there are so many people that we need to communicate brand to so we actually need to have a coherent and consistent method of communicating what our methods are."

Nursing Times were very clear that honesty was an important starting point in terms of making sure everyone understood, firstly the issues and secondly the message. Alastair explains:

"..We begun by identifying the problems. There are generally times when people are defensive, ignore the points or give up. Nursing Times was a very challenged brand - it was important that everybody recognised that. However, I took this job because I believe the brand can survive and prosper. I would not tie my own future with a brand that does not have one. So, it's about honesty...honesty about the problem and honesty about what it will take to develop a compelling narrative about the brand's future.

The "narrative", as Alastair refers to it, or the "sentiment", in Carl's words, form the elements of the brands personality. Although, the wording changes, we can still see that they essentially refer to the same thing: a value statement or statements. In other words: the brand's personality.

In TNT's case, the personality is easy to discern: the tagline "sure we can" positions the organisation - and, of course, the individuals that make it up - as "flexible, positive and committed" amongst others. Of course, there are others, but the tagline goes a long way to giving customers and stakeholders a strong gist of what TNT is all about..

Despite the obvious clarity though, internally communicating these values can still be difficult. TNT's Andrew Huestis readily accepts that making sure everyone is on board is "a big challenge: the hardest part of it is getting the message to come alive".

Obviously; the bigger the organisation is, the bigger the problem. But if they are to be successful then it's a must that these values permeate the entire organisation: from the top downwards, sideways etc. etc. Many companies prefer to embed these values into their employees' behaviour through training and measuring them post training through Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). The trick here, though, is to keep it simple. As Andrew says in TNT's case:

"One of the challenges is that we have too many things that people have to remember. So we have values, standards, principles, core competencies etc. It's difficult to remember which are which. Our standards, for example "be honest", are more like values. It's very hard for people to keep track and I think we need to simplify that for people so they don't have too much to keep track of."

In terms of communicating Virgin's values, Joe further explains that:

"...it's the way that people around the company behave that best portrays the brand. It comes from the top. If everyone in senior management extols the brand's virtues and behaves in a way that is brand aligned then that will be reflected in the people that we recruit. It's very easy to have robotic people that can recite values but our training shows people how to behave."

One big question remains though: once, these values are successfully embedded, do they actually influence company behaviour?

Alastair Mclellan, thinks so:

"We've proved our case to ourselves so we are not flying blind. We've thought carefully about how we are going to execute the new brand strategy. It's simple and straightforward, it only has 4 constituent parts: everyone knows about them and we go on and on about them: making sure everyone understands that. We've agreed the way forward as a team. It's simple and easily understood by all. If you look at Nursing Times now and compare it with 6 months ago, you will see a big change."

Joe Ferry concurs:

"I think we were the first people to write down values and then head office - who manage the brand for the majority of the companies who use the Virgin trademark - have similar but not the same brand values. So there’s probably a job to align them if we feel the need. But part of the energy and maverick nature of the Virgin brand is that you allow other brands within the group to – within reason – to go off and invent themselves as most appropriate for their sector...we do look for people who do care and innovation requires people who can embrace change: people with a “can do” attitude. Safety, for example, needs caring and honest people. Creatives should be energetic and should be people who can challenge the norm for example who get people enthused about innovation...”

As Joe’s role is heading up Virgin Atlantic’s environment design team, it’s interesting to also note his views on brand representation in the physical world:

“it’s vital that everything you do is representing the brand in the correct way. So, if we are designing environments (internal or external) we always focus on fun and value. So the types of furniture really cares about the fact that people are crossing timezones etc. So a lot of the aesthetic elements that we use, woods or stones that have intrinsic aesthetics so it’s not faux so there’s an element of honesty around the environment. So in summary the values do affect our design and we live the values through design.”

And:

“I think it’s quite depressing how some companies overuse their corporate identities in environments e.g. we use red in quite a restrictive way in our upper class cabins. We use it to give a nod towards the brand. The environments that we use should evoke the brand...”

Although, as we’ve already seen, Andrew Huestis thinks values can be difficult to embed, he does conclude that measuring staff against the values is ultimately succeeding across the organisation as “our objectives integrate all our values: it’s how individuals are assessed”.

And despite FIVE’s different take on the “traditional” brand strategy/values approach, the issue of consistency is still paramount: everyone - from external agencies to internal staff – has to understand the brand:

“The essential part of that is to get good people who listen. The first part is chemistry/character. I always give written briefs. The clues and language is all in that written brief. In terms of transference, you have to make sure that everyone understands the brand that is in your head is something we can be better on. There are broad notions that sit around the business so for example if we asked any FIVE staff to sum up in 5 words what the place is like to work you’d get a broad territory that is colourful, effervescent etc: basically a broad footprint. We’ve got this thought “we are FIVE”. That notion of we, collective is what the whole thing is about. The “Weeness”: that’s important”.

Interestingly enough though, another personality facet that consistently runs through FIVE is that of the “worrier”. Carl summarises it as:

“FIVE as an organisation is still “surviving”. The digitals channels were a long time coming but they came. We were historically canny. Selling off our freeview capacity was not a great idea though. It was short-sighted because we had to get that capacity back. It slowed us down. So, we’ve spent a long time surviving and not growing so that spirit runs through the business and therefore it can make us worriers as opposed to more confident “

The digital world appears to present other issues for organisations in respect to an identifiable set of values. Similarly to FIVE, We7 does not have an identifiable set of values: Steve explains:

“We don’t have a set of defined values. Having done this before, there is a certain size of organisation where you need that, for example, what colour, animal or even car do you want to be. But as a start-up you are in your formative years. So we want to be strong, doing the right thing. The music business is full of people ripping off artists. So we wanted an organisation that valued and paid for the music. But whether we are a “happy”, “sad” or “red” organisation: then we are not there yet.”

But does a distinct personality permeate We7?

“Well the good thing is that we are in the music business so it’s about passion. Therefore passion and integrity are definitely things that we are driving through. Those are elements of the framework. So I go to events and talk to the likes of Jimmy Page and that’s quite irrationally seductive. So passion and integrity definitely comes out and music creates fun.”

So, although there is some correlation with FIVE’s outlook, there are also distinct differences between We7’s offering and a commercial TV channel in general as Steve concludes:

“...music is more interesting. When you listen to music it’s more intimate. There are only a few people that you allow in to whisper in your ears and therefore you have to have some sensitivity in mixing the world of music and advertising. For example a romantic ballad say would not work with a hard trade ad. We have something called a sonic matrix. If you have a slow medium or high tempo advert then we can match it up to the track, At the moment we don’t have enough to make that work. Once we have a wide range of creatives then you can solve that problem easily.”

Visibility can be an odd issue in a branding context. Can a brand be too visible and render itself invisible? Is visibility analogous to publicity, i.e. all publicity is good publicity? Does sponsorship help or hinder a brand?

Generally this is a funny problem. Most brands probably see brand ubiquity as a nice problem to have. In terms of the brand owners that we spoke to for this issue, the general feeling was that the "over-visibility" is not an issue, especially if you are a brand that's still "getting there". In these cases the logical problem seems to be how to increase visibility.

Of course, one of the major issues in terms of visibility is the competition. Is your brand affected by what the competition is doing? Should it be?

In terms of general visibility, many companies find that analysis of their visibility presents some interesting clues in how the business currently stacks up generally and amongst its relevant competition and - perhaps - areas for improvement. TNT's view:

"(We are) visible among the relevant market. So, the key decision makers in most companies. If the basis was these decision makers (in Europe) then awareness of us is very good. I think we suffer from not being too visible among "one time users" etc (new secretary or someone shipping something for the 1st time which is a large market in terms of numbers). Globally, we are less strong depending on the market. We are growing in Asia, China specifically. So we are investing a lot there. And also growing a lot in the Middle East. But we are not the No1 brand. We are usually no 2 to DHL or even FedEx sometimes".

In terms of "over visibility":
"(I think) there are 3 different levels. 1) Brand awareness 2) brand strength and 3) brand "overuse"

Generally, brands can either have a positive image or a negative one. In terms of overuse, it can become meaningless. But in our industry we certainly cannot be overseen."

Brand visibility analysis has also highlighted areas of concern to FIVE. According to Carl Ratcliff:

"One of the things we underestimate is our reach: it's 40 million viewers over a month and that is a lot. So on the one hand we DO have visibility: people know where FIVE is but still don't know what we are about. There is no great epiphany. Visibility...for us it's more about connection.

We suffer from vagueness and a lack of relevance therefore we need to connect more with individuals. Virals are a great way of doing this: quality connection. Great content doesn't always work."

A recent example of FIVE's virals can be found at http://www.areyouwatching.tv

Carl adds:

"What motivated me was that I looked at a poll and we were at the bottom of the top 5 most hated and most loved. So polarity isn't right. That's what we need to get right".

Interestingly Virgin Atlantic has found that the general consensus is they are perceived to be more visible than they actually are. Joe Ferry observed that:

"Being on the inside of a brand, it's a bit difficult to tell as all I see day in and day out is Virgin. I rely on other people to tell me. What tends to be a good marker is that if I go to conferences etc, I ask people how many aircraft we have: they often tend to say 100 or so but the reality is that we only have 38 so, in terms of our presence and visibility, we are renown for punching above our weight. I think the ad campaigns are heavily supported by our PR campaigns."

In Virgin's case, it's clear that having a somewhat charismatic and media friendly President greatly helps its visibility cause. But nonetheless, as Joe also observes, it's also clear that the brand is seen as innovative and as such needs to constantly reinforce that aspect in order to keep "punching above its weight":

"I think we are always looking at new avenues. The personal touch is always good. We took our cabin crew dressed in retro uniforms that we used in the (25th anniversary) advertising campaign to Canary Wharf around the financial district: a sort of guerrilla marketing there really. We should always look at ways of portraying the brand in an innovative way. With our brand we should be swift in using innovative methods..."

Although visibility can act as a general indicator of brand strength or weakness, in the context of the start-up it can also be a little ambivalent. In the early days it will certainly act as a "reach barometer" but the general view is that time makes brand visibility more meaningful. Steve Purdham has found that, in We7's case, it's still too early to see whether they can be credited with instigating an "ideal" in terms of musical dissemination. In the context of visibility, Steve's view is that:

"On a scale of 0-10 (brand visibility is) probably about 4 so if I walk around there are more people that haven't heard of us than have".

Although that's relatively low, Steve adds:

"But will they understand the concept? Yes. Would they understand the ideal that we've put into the public psyche? Yes. But whether they associate that with We7: probably not. But, having said that, 90 days and 500,000 users is a lot of momentum and that's actually...understanding who is the potential user of We7 is and...they define what the look and feel, the colour we are etc. "

Looking at a brand's visibility also highlights another of the areas that need to be considered: the competition. How important is it to distinguish and be distinguishable from them? In TNT's case, the competition is very stiff and by their own admission - on a global basis - they are frequently behind the "big players" such as FedEx, DHL and UPS. In their case, some of the competition can be very creative in terms of visibility. A good, fairly recent, example was FedEx's creative product placement in the movie Castaway and, indeed, product placement in general. Interestingly, however, TNT has shied away from looking at these types of touch-points, focusing its energies instead on sponsorship of the United Nations' World Food Programme (www.movingtheworld.org). In general TNT as a brand is definitely one that is still "getting there" but has, certainly with the WFP, appears to have found a laudable cause: Andrew Huestis explains:

“We do a lot of ATL advertising: TV, airports and sponsorships etc. We’ve focussed a lot more on face to face selling. We are bigger than our competitors in that respect. We support the World Food Programme. I don’t think that’s maybe sponsorship per se. We used to sponsor the Dutch Open (golf) but have decided to spend that money on the WFP instead. So we provide them expertise, reduced transit times (for emergency shipments) and we train their people. Our people also help with school feeding programs. It’s a good relationship and people feel good about that and that attracts good people. But we don’t shout about it. Most people don’t know that we do it.”

So, if the WFP distinguishes TNT from the competition, are there areas that the competition still plays an influential role on its operations?

“I think that we are sometimes too focused on the competition. Because we all see ourselves as integrators i.e. we all have our road and air networks but we also forget about local players and they are often also forgotten about.

It’s really only the integrators that can control the quality for example a local courier sending something from Europe to Africa then you don’t know where it’s going on route. We do focus on the competition, I don’t know if it’s too much but I do think we are more entrepreneurial and often come up with products that our competitors follow suit. Last year for example we introduced a new 10 o’clock service as well as a 12 o’clock service. This was a road-only delivery network with time specifics. We didn’t follow anyone on this and really came up on ours.“

In TNT’s case then, it seems to be that its (bigger) competition will more likely change their strategies as opposed to the converse:

“It’s sometimes maddening that when we do we see the competition copying us but with more fanfare!”

TNT’s position is perhaps different to most in that it seems to lead on innovation within its industry. Although Andrew’s view is that one can focus too much on the competition, it seems fairly prudent to be at least aware of their activities. FIVE’s Carl Ratcliff:

“To a degree, I think you are always interested in the others and how they are doing things. I’m always interested in what Channel 4 is doing. Once upon a time, I think they were very creative and how that content was marketed...I don’t think that’s the case anymore”.

But would the competition affect Carl’s strategy?

“I don’t know is the truthful answer. ITV1 have come up with a new strapline and that has made me think a little about ours but, I think we are ok. Well, you always keep an eye on it. I always keep an eye out for the good things and not so much the bad.”

The competition does not majorly influence Virgin Atlantic per se but as Joe notes:

“No (they are not a major influence) but we have to remain competitive so that influences us. But in terms of brands then no. What we tend to do is focus on brands that inspire us i.e. “who’s doing the best environments (hotels, retail etc)”. We then see if we can encapsulate the best of those elements. Our competitors have their own core brand values and they create products and services that reflect that.”

And very similar to TNT, Joe has seen that:

“...we’ve noticed that we take a lot of pain over our innovation as our competitors will replicate a lot of what we do. We then have to work even harder to stay ahead of the competition...we have to constantly evaluate. It’s all very well breaking new ground but if people catch up then you need to improve upon that”

So, being aware of your competition, if not necessarily influenced by them, certainly seems the good mindset to adopt. We7 agrees:

“(I am) not so much influenced but you cannot be complacent. You need competition: if not then the market does not exist. At the end of the day it’s better to have more people shouting the message and that message becomes more valuable.

For us there are 3 types of competitors 1) geographical 2) people who takes out any other advertising services 3) competitors in your space: the ones that have a similar offering. In the UK there are 2-3 names, We7, Last FM and Spotify. In these cases brand starts to become meaningful; even at a small scale e.g. who do you trust etc

At the moment – in ad funded spaces – most people will know us, Last FM and Spotify. Brand in this situation starts to become very important.”

Of course, another aspect worth considering is whether your competitor is taking too much from you. Google, a brand that consistently came up with all of our interviewees as an admired brand, are a good case in point here and very well summarised by Steve Purdham:

“Google...a company that is less than 15 years old went from rags to riches. They didn’t always get it right: they initially missed the idea of ad funding but now it’s a core. They were not the first but what they (ultimately) did was to make the experience right for the user and then monetise the experience.”

Steve’s point is one that Infoseek, Lycos and Altavista, no doubt, know only too well: as unlike Google, none of them ever became verbs (if that can be used as an indicia for success).

There is something of the inevitable in looking at the economic situation in this article: it's inescapable and we simply cannot ignore that fact. Sadly, the gloomy situation has been with us for some time and looks set to continue for some time to come. The pound hits record lows against other currencies, interest rates continue to plummet and now the Bank of England had issued some £75B in "quantitative easing".

When the recession began to bite in earnest at the start of the last quarter of 2008, we noticed that the reaction amongst many in the industry was to immediately clamp down: agencies got rid of staff and clients stopped issuing briefs. None of these companies can be blamed for being too reactionary though, the truth was that no one was entirely sure what was going to happen. And let's face it, most of us still don't know. But surely business and industry has to make some sort of effort? Without that effort, I suppose we should all just pack up and go home, right?

Sure some brands can carry on business as usual. Indeed, some brands have reported record highs (Primark to name one). But that clearly cannot be said for most brand owners: certainly all the ones that we interviewed for these articles anyway. Nursing Times say that the competitive position they found themselves in, accentuated by a potential downturn in public sector spending brought about by the recession, was the major catalyst to their strategy:

"The financial situation has created it. We ARE making less and if we were making more then there would be much less need for it. This (the strategy) is about creating a sustainable brand"

Of course the knock-on effect is clear to see here as well: If the strategy is essentially a reaction to the financial situation then the fact that Nursing Times have had to redefine its team to implement the new strategy, cannot be ignored either.

FIVE has also noticed the effect of the downturn. As with any commercial station, advertising revenue plays an enormous role in the company's wellbeing. Indeed, according to Carl Ratcliff:

"(The financial situation)...does affect us because of spot revenue. 90% of our revenue comes from spot revenue on Channel 5. So if that's the case, the moment big advertisers, for example the big banks, retailers, DIY stores, stop advertising then this will have an effect on us. Commercial advertising generally is down by about 20% and we are down by more than that to be honest. Although you might be doing well in terms of share of viewing, ultimately the real indicator is share of commercial impact because that's money. So we've been affected; badly."

TNT has also noticed the effects of the downturn. In relation to whether it's had to make any adjustments to its overall business strategy, Andrew Huestis believes that's it's a question of ongoing monitoring:

"I think it's an ongoing thing. But like most companies we have had to make adjustments. For example, in our business we do air and road shipments and the air shipments have been hurt far more than the road shipments because the air shipments are more expensive than the road. So, we've had to make adjustments. So we are looking at more cost effective ways at strengthening the brand. So looking at internal communications, workshops etc. Externally, we are focusing on online searches (Search engine optimisation, Direct Marketing etc)"

Of course, one of the interesting cases here is We7 who haven’t had to tweak their strategy to deal with the crisis as their launch pretty much coincided with the recession’s first bite in earnest. For a start-up, timing of its launch cannot be seen as ideal but given that one of the draws to We7’s offering is that it is a free service then surely that should make life easier? Shouldn’t it? The reality is still somewhat different as Steve explains:

“Although we are a free service, we are ad funded so bringing in something like that to market and companies like ITV shedding jobs (ad revenues being down by 30%) because of a loss of revenue I suppose it could have been a better time but, I’ve built businesses when the technological bubble burst: at the end of the day one of the things that a start-up has is it has no history, so it has nothing to beat, it just has to do something. And so if the proposition works, it’s not a bad thing because you just focus on the proposition (the real value) and in our case it’s about giving the consumer free music so we can build an audience to sell to advertisers and make money from that”

One of the takeaway points from these mini case-studies is that of survival. In Nursing Times’ case, the whole strategy is about creating a sustainable title as a result of the financial situation and geared to last through it. Additionally, TNT has seen that whilst customers still require the movement of packages, they will clearly opt for the cheaper option where available: so their customers’ clampdowns directly impact on the company’s operation.

But, there is still room for optimism. Virgin’s view is that:

“Just because there is a recession you cannot change your brand values to accommodate that. If you are an innovative brand then you have to keep investing in innovation in a recession. If you have fun in your values then even though it’s dark times you can still reminisce about how great it was when we launched.”