"A Brand That Gets It And Makes Me Smile"

I am the first to admit that many of times I read the Atlanta Business Chronicle, I think about how many great business prospects are out there for BRANDVenture.

“Prospects” being defined as the business leadership that needs strategic advice on how to bring brands to life and stop employing the same old strategy time after time that doesn’t work in 2011 forward.

This past week, I actually read an article about an Atlanta landmark brand and the launch of its new advertising campaign. It was nice to be able to say, “damn that brand gets it.”

What is the brand doing that makes me smile?

First of all, the brand line is great. It is driven by the brand’s EIP (Emotional Ignition Point) and taps into the heart and aspiration of its customer base.

The line is simple. It does not self-promote any of the mechanical and internal elements of the delivery of the brand experience.

The line is NOT a variation of one of their competitors like Home Depot’s line “More Saving. More Doing.” and Target’s line “Expect More. Pay Less”… oh yes, and Wal-Mart’s line “Save Money. Live Better.”

Second, the article doesn’t say anything about whom the brand identifies as its customer base, but I know that the advertiser uses the same system that I do to identify audience groups.

I would put some money on the betting table that it isn’t a simple “Adults 35-54” and furthermore, that the brand understands that more than one audience group represents opportunity.

The media-driven broad target groupings are way out-dated versus the niche-marketing rifle targeting approach accessible to marketers today.

Third, the Atlanta brand took charge of the media mavens.

Specifically, the media cited in the article reflects very directly the lifestyle of the brand’s audience groups and not the media avenues that the Media Mavens (and the Media Reps) claim deliver the “highest levels of reach and ratings.”

The media mix that the Atlanta brand is employing is comprised of top lifestyle cable networks like HGTV, Bravo, The Food Network and Travel Channel.

They are also running advertising on ESPN and MLB Network. Male viewers, especially those found within their top lifestyle target groups, are big sports fans.

Fourth, the magazine mix is a true lifestyle portrait of their audience groups.

Not only is the Atlanta landmark brand advertising in conventional publications reflective of its product line – business publications like Forbes, Business Week and Fortune, but it is also using magazines reflective of the target group lifestyles…Vanity Fair, Men’s Journal, Food & Wine and The New Yorker.

Oh… and the magazine mix reflects very directly on a core target base as well as opportunity development segments like Millennial generation techies, managers and entrepreneurs with Fast Company Magazine as well as successful African-American business leadership with Black Enterprise.

I have met the senior VP of marketing who is quoted in the article.

I can tell you that he and his personality is not the tight suit and ties found in other Atlanta business boardrooms.

This brand gets it.

They understand fully that the market has changed.

That reach and frequency and mass marketing is dead and the brands that ascribe to it, are dying quickly too.

Trust me, there are many times when I work with top leadership of top brands and Lord help us their ad agencies and media buying groups, that claim the strategy platforms I develop are heretical.

And there are some very leading-edge management and agency teams that I work with that take a deep breath and take the risk of adopting a new marketing paradigm.

Then smile as their brand shares grow!

The Atlanta brand that makes me smile is Delta Airlines.

Their new brandline is “Keep Climbing.”

Their recently hired new ad agency is Wieden-Kennedy… the same agency that crafted NIKE’s brand campaign, Just Do It.

Need I say any more?