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Interesting people, insightful points of view and incredible stories on what’s popping and not popping in marketing, tech, and culture you can use to win immediately. Brands, Beats and Bytes boldly stands at the intersection of brand, tech and culture. DC and Larry are fascinated with stories and people behind some of the best marketing in the business. No matter how dope your product, if your marketing sucks your company may suck too. #dontsuck
DC: Calling all Brand Nerds. Back at you with another episode of Brands, Beats and Bytes, the podcast. All right, Brand nerds. Y'all know how we do the What's Popping thing sometimes, and it's just me and Jeff and LT, we just kinda kick it on the subject. So that's what this is today. This is a What's Poppin' episode with the three of us, The Brand Positioning Doctors has as our managing partners. So with that LT, J. Let's get this party started.
JS: Yes, DC I, I think LT's gonna kick us, kick us off with the topic today.
LT, what you got?
LT: All right. Gents. This is a good one, I think. Uh, so we're gonna go back to the fundamentals. It's sort of like Rocky III back to, you know, the fundamentals of marketing here at Gents and, and really how it plays out with a multi-billion dollar brand.
So, we happen to see an article recently where the new Under Armour CEO Stephanie Linnartz and I think I have that pronunciation correct, is talking about how she wants to build quote, "brand heat." It also occurred to me that that sounded familiar and I went and did a little research and found an article from late 2022. Where Kevin Bailey, the Van's Global Brand President, also talked about raising quote unquote "brand heat." Having not been born yesterday, I am taking a solid educated guess that some Wall Street industry analyst is using this term to describe whether brands in the athletic shoe industry are resonating with the consumer, not was simply is the brand hot or knot with consumers. It then got me to thinking, what do these people really know about building brand heat? So, mm-hmm. I'd love to hear you gents, comment on this.
DC: What's do you think, Jay, what?
JS: Well, uh, my, my comment is gonna be a lawyer answer. Um, that's a lawyer answer. No, no. It's, uh, it's is, we shall see is, is the answer. Uh, it for me. And what I mean by that is, as I watch this evolve, I'm going to play it back against the fundamentals of what we know it takes to build a great brand. One of the things I noticed is they said they're gonna focus on product innovation well, um, as we know between if you had a choice of build, having a great product and a good brand, or a great brand and a good product, the great brand is gonna win product innovation.
They'll have that for a minute, then everyone else will follow suit. They had a product innovation on, um, something with the technology, um, for sportswear, and I didn't know that until I read about it, but everyone's doing it now, so it doesn't give them a competitive advantage.
LT: Table stakes, huh? What?
JS: What'd you say? Yes.
LT: Table stakes.
JS: Table stakes, yeah. Now the good news is they said they're gonna focus around the Curry brand. He has a great brand. The question is how they're gonna build it. And are they gonna, are they going to use the right fundamentals of building a great brand to do that? So my answer is we shall see.
DC: Mm.
LT: D, what ya thinking?
DC: Alright. It's similar to what Jeff said, um, about when he mentioned product innovation. I believe that they're conflating both Under Armor, uh, the Stephanie and uh, and Under Armor and Vans. They're conflating product heat with brand heat. Yep. They thinking they got a hot product line that that will make the brand hot and I believe that they move heaven and earth with their product designers respectively.
To do something that is, and as Jeff has pointed out, innovative in order to create brand heat. Um, I think that's, um, to put it kindly, fool hearted. Mm-hmm. I think, I think it's fool hearted and I use, uh, since we're talking about, um, Under Armour and Vans, they are in the, uh, let's call it the shoe category, in the case of. And, uh, under, under Armor it's, uh, performance base Vans is more, uh, lifestyle. Yep. Although all of these brands could in some way be thought of as, uh, thought of as, you know, lifestyle brands. Yep. But let's go back to a category to which you're very familiar, Larry, as are you, uh, Jeff, the beverage category.
So Gatorade. When they had Michael Jordan and they released a campaign called "Like Mike."
LT: "Be like Mike."
DC: Yes. Be like Mike. Alright. That was in 1992. Yep. Dare I say that, Gatorade had a lot of brand heat around then. Mm-hmm. But it didn't have anything to do with. Some new line extension from Gatorade or some product innovation.
It was all about the emotion evolved in be like this guy, be like this guy who was
at the height of Gator, by the way. Height of a superpowers. Hi. Height of, height of a superpowers. And I think, um, I, I think it was 2010. 2010 now is when Gatorade did their first new line extensions of products. So someone have to check, check us out on this.
So just, just, let's think about this now. 1992 brand at the Gatorade, the zenith of their brand heat because they have Michael Jordan and Be Like Mike. And then they, they wait until 2010 to do some quote unquote product innovation. So when I hear Stephanie and others talk about brand heat, I'm like, is that what you really mean?
Yeah. That's, that's, that's my takeaway. That's, that's, that's what's popping for me. Yeah.
LT: This is great for us to chew on. So Jeff, if you don't mind, I'm gonna wade in here. Um, yep. What D, brought up with was awesome about Gatorade and dare I say, that brand heat is something that we all know and feel. It's like, what was that line?
The Supreme Court Justice says, I, I, I'll know porn when I see it. Like
DC: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Brand.
JS: I can't describe it, but I know it when I see it.
LT: Right. Brand heat is similar. You don't have to be an expert like we are in the marketing space. Yeah. But we, you need to be an expert like us to build brand heat.
Yes. Yes. And so it go, it goes back to brand positioning. And as I was reading, I wanna read you a little, a snippet for what, um, Stephanie Linnartz said, um, in, in this call with analysts, um, which I thought was very telling in what she did not say. Uh, she said that, uh, you can expect to see a radically stepped up use of the "Protect This House" marketing platform. Uh, the company rebooted the campaign and this time she said, quote, it's a new call to action reaching people whose motivations differ from previous generations. And then we, she went on to say, the ads will highlight the grit, edge, and swagger needed to perform on the world's most elite stage. And she says that with women's products accounting for 25% of sales, the growth potential is vast. She said quote, "we have yet to make our definitive must have product." Again, there's product "for women and footwear must be part of the equation. We will go after women harder than this company has ever seen."
Well, not once did I hear the word consumer. Uh, it's all about product and it goes back to what people I think are comfortable with. So that's great. You're going after women, but how are you positioning yourself to women in, in a category that, dare I say is, is infiltrated with the Lululemons of the world and also Nike and many others who already have emotional connections with women that you don't have.
And so the nuances of brand positioning become uber critical. I'm gonna go back to a story. You, you brought up Gatorade D it's so interesting and this, this whole thing with Vans got me to think about what, what happened with Powerade. I've never told this on the podcast. One of the reasons, ways we, we, I think, uh, really made Powerade happen was because of the brand positioning. And it goes back to we were being pitched a skateboard tour as for Powerade to be a sponsor of, and I'm sitting through this and I'm like, this is not our brand. This is not our brand, and it led me and our team to go back and really, really define our brand positioning and what, what came out of that meeting was our brand lover was then, was then promulgated. And what I mean by that is that's when we came up with our brand lover is the captain of the football, basketball, and baseball team in high school. Guess what? The skateboard kid and that kid, they can't stand each other. They don't like each other. Yeah. That's why it was feeling like, oh, the skateboard thing is not working for us. So when we defined that, it was very easy for anybody in that space when they came to us for, um, for sponsorships, no, that's not who we are. That's when we doubled down and we became, we, we became a huge sponsor of Five Star basketball, which again, which I went to, which was the elite basketball camp of the country. LeBron is shown, uh, when, when he was there in high school holding up the Powerade trophy. So, mm-hmm. It goes back to really then defining the brand positioning before you can ever create real true brand heat to increase the odds for brand heat, right? Sometimes you can get lucky, but increasing the odds for brand heat is when you really position your brand in a way that is awesome, that's clearly defined, and that you then emotionally connect, with your execution like Gatorade did with Be Like Mike. So I'm not that those were my competitor, but they did an incredible job in that execution to really emotionally connect with consumers.
JS: Yes. And And lt, I love what you're saying because we're gonna be able to look when they start executing to see if they follow those grand principles, are they talking to their brand lover?
Right. Are they, um, defining themselves through their category reference? Are they using an analogy or are they showing the benefit? We will be able to know if they're doing that from a brand heat perspective or a product heat perspective. If they do it from a brand heat perspective, they will gain market share. If they do not, they won't. It's as simple as that.
DC: Yeah, I agree. Yeah, and if they gain it based on product, they will only hold that gain. And I, we call that renting share. That's right. For as long as someone else comes up with they, another, their product innovation that you search theirs. Uh, two additional takeaways.
First is this Brand Nerds. Be very careful when you hear people talk about what they want their brand, um, to be, or what they're going to do. Because the way that it sounds like, and I need to read the article, Larry, I'm not, so this may not be a fair characterization, but it sounds like in the case of Under Armor and Vans, they talked about brand heat as a strategy. Brand heat is a result or outcome. It's not a strategy. Yep. You have to do something that then begets. So begets the, uh, the, the brand heat. So that's the first thing. Brand nerves, just keep, keep an ear and eye out for that. And then the second thing is, uh, uh, is the, is this, um, it don't confuse like brand heat as, uh, as some new term that, uh, is actually meaningful in the creation of a brand. Yeah. Consumers are not out here saying to themselves, Ooh, I can't wait for Under Armor to get hot again. They're not, they're not saying that. And uh, you, I can hear Larry in the article that you read about, they wanna go back to "Protect This House."
So you gotta be careful now. When Under Armour started, they were the underdog. They were the Challenger Brand. Yep. And when they said Protect This House, it was unequivocally linked to football. Yep. Because in the notion of football, one stadium Home Stadium is considered to be their house. Mm-hmm. Well, their biggest athlete partnership now is, as you said, Larry, Warriors Fam, Stephan Curry.
Basketball fans don't think of their stadiums as like my house. They think of them as home court. Yep. But not my house. Yep. So, They're gonna bring back a pos, a a a, a marketing strategy and strat line that was created to be relevant in football. And they're attempting to expand that not only to all sports, but now they're saying women's sports.
So they're gonna take the most masculine aggressive sport, football. And that's how they got "Protect This House" and they said, we're gonna use that line now to be everything including women's sports. It just feels strategically flawed from the beginning to me.
LT: D, you, you know what? I couldn't agree with you more and, and you know what it smacks of, I'm gonna be really blunt brand nerds.
It's like, oh shit, that worked before. Let's bring that back. Yes. You know who put to work before? Yes. And you just, you just painted the reality of 2023. That's much different when that worked before. Yes. And the reason why that worked before, dare I say, is because they did a great job of positioning Under Armor originally for football.
DC: Yes, that's right. Right. That's exactly what they gave. Yes.
LT: So now you're, now you're bigger. Now it's a whole different game that you're playing. And what I noticed, what I was saying before, Stephanie never mentioned, uttered the word consumer, not once. Mm-hmm. In in anything that she said. Oh, whi, which that omission is glaring to me.
I wanna read one quick thing that conversely, while I agree with everything you, you gents said about product and brand, what I will mm-hmm. I do think that Vans though, has a better chance because here's what, um, here's what Vans, uh, uh, Mr. Bailey said, um, about what they're doing, uh, in terms of, um, the structure of their organization.
He said to update the model, leadership roles are being realigned with a focus on the consumer. So everything they're gonna be doing now is focused on consumer and, uh, whereas before they had, uh, Footwear apparel marketing. Now they're gonna be fo now they're gonna do everything they can, is gonna be aligned under consumer, uh, consumer types so that they can be much more strategic, uh, like for surfing, for different things like that, that they hadn't done before.
So I think that chances of of success, because they're gonna be consumer focused, are greater with Vans, even though they're for our taste, they're still product focused.
DC: Now this is tricky. This is tricky. Larry and Jeff, many moons ago, inside of the Coca-Cola company, there was a reorganization. It was based on consumer segments. Just like what I'm hearing you say now, uh, that that did not work. It may have been an idea ahead of its time, given what you're now describing about, um, vans.
My question is, when reorganizing a company and or marketing function based on consumer, and we know consumers ultimately position brands, what do we lose with regard to institutional knowledge and passion about a particular brand? When, when myself and you guys know this, and others were working on the Sprite brand, if someone came in and they said, you know, we are the experts on consumers, um, uh, youth and, uh, teen and young adult.
And so we need to tell you what you, you need to be thinking about as you market the Sprite brand and those folks. We may have said to them what Michael Wilbon, respect to the legend on PTI, uh, Pardon The Interruption says often. Get outta here, get out. You might have said that. So I think in theory that is an interesting cut and organization.
Somebody's got a love, uh, the brand. That, that's it.
LT: Yep. Well said. I, I just. I think you gotta be thinking cons before you can position your brand. You gotta be at least thinking from a consumer lens. D we always talk about that and that's where I'm come back. At least they have a consumer lens. I'm not seeing that with Under Armor.
I could be wrong, but I'm not seeing that.
DC: Yeah, I agree with that. Jeff, anything to add?
JS: No, you guys, you all have summed it up. Um, these are basic principles, um, but we often see them missed. And, um, hopefully they don't miss it. But the indi uh, it's not leaning toward that from what we've read thus far.
LT: Yeah, it sure feels that way. Uh, this was excellent. Jenz going to hit the close. thanks for listening to brands, beats and Bites, brand nerds recording virtually on Zoom in a production of K Z S U Stanford 90.1 FM radio and worldwide@kzsu.org. The executive producers are Jeff Shirley, Darryl DC Cobin, Larry Tae and Haley Cobin, j Tate, and Tom Dro,
DC: the pod father.
LT: That is right. And if you are listening to us via podcast, it would be great. If you can please rate and review us. Additionally, if you do like the show, please subscribe and share. We hope you enjoyed this podcast and we look forward to next time where we will have more insightful and enlightening talk about marketing.