The nominations are in, preparations are underway, and Hollywood's A-list is out in force shopping for an outfit for the 2003 Academy Awards. This year's awards mark a historical milestone for Tinsel Town: it's Oscar's 75th anniversary.

While many things have changed in Hollywood since the late 1920s when Oscar first came to town, at least one thing has remained mostly the same at the studios: marketing. These days, if you took a close look at Hollywood's marketing practices, you might think you were back in the lavish heyday of the motion picture industry rather than in a recession. In a year that for every other company in America—and most of the world for that matter—was about eliminating waste and protecting every precious dollar of potential profit, Hollywood's approach to marketing borders on irresponsible.

An anti-research mentality is as common in Hollywood today as the belief in a flat earth in the 15th century. Even though other product marketers regularly use concept testing to gauge consumer interest prior to investing more money in development of a prototype or manufacturing operations, most studios just prescreen a film after production is done and a significant investment has been made to gauge audience reactions. If audiences don't like it, well, then the crew and stars get called back in for more shooting, titles get changes, editors go back to work, and the studio spends more money to make the film passable—that is if they decided not to shelve it outright.

Instead of research, studios appear to be channeling more marketing dollars into promotional efforts and advertising, particularly television. "Movie studios…are heavily TV oriented, and they're spending more," Carat North America's Charlie Rutman recently told Advertising Age. Of the 55 national spots that aired during the Super Bowl this year, for instance, 9 were movie trailers for forthcoming films. Strangely, many of the movies advertised during the game are not due out for several months. As we've written before, this is like heating your home during the summer hoping it'll stay warm for winter.

These unrestrained marketing practices seem to be catching up with Hollywood. Though 2002 was a great year at the box office—$8 billion in box office receipts and the first time in box office history that three major studios hit the billion-dollar mark with ticket sales—it did not top 2001's receipts, which were a little over $8 billion. Studios did see some stunning movie successes, but also some incredible flops. Sony made a bundle with top-grossing Spider Man, but also claimed the biggest flop with Swept Away. DreamWorks blew almost 20% of its box office earnings with big losses on The Time Machine and Tuxedo.

How much could studios have saved if they had done some concept testing to ditch the flops and find the blockbuster? How much more could they have made if they had used marketing communications dollars more effectively rather than blow it on the Super Bowl months before a movie is ready for the theaters?

Even as they reminisce at the Oscars in a few weeks, Hollywood's studio management needs to focus on bringing all aspects of movie making—including marketing—into the 21st century.

As our readers know, we've been concerned for sometime about the pervasive confusion marketers seem to have about visual identity—a logo, color scheme, clever tagline, font style—and brand; the confusion being that visual identity=brand. We think this obsession is, at least in part, responsible for the deterioration of advertising, particularly TV advertising, into purely visual displays.

What has happened to the words? What has happened to the powerful verbal descriptions that tell someone why he or she should buy a brand? We decided to ask John Simmons, director of verbal identity at Interbrand in London, why companies should care about verbal identity as much as visual identity. John is also the author of We, Me, Them & It: The Power of Words in Business and the forthcoming The Invisible Grail: In Search of the True Language of Brands, both published by Texere. Here's what he had to say:

Copernicus Mzine: To start off, what is verbal identity and why is it important? In your mind, how is it different from visual identity? How do the two work together?

John Simmons: Suppose we stopped people in the street and asked the question: "What do you think of when we say the words 'brand' and 'identity'?" First, most people would think the words are more or less interchangeable. Secondly, they would say something like "it's a logo". But a brand's visual identity is only part of its story. A successful brand communicates by using the senses, and, in particular, it uses words as powerfully as images. The two go together, each reinforces the other. The equivalents of visual identity's logotypes, colors, typefaces, photographic style, etc., are verbal identity's names, straplines, tone of voice, and stories. No brand will communicate effectively if it ignores words while giving all its attention to images.

Words are the main means we all use to initiate, maintain, and develop relationships. That's what any brand is trying to do: build better relationships between itself and its audiences. Achieving that is the holy grail of branding, and it is words that can help us achieve it. So that explains the title of my new book The Invisible Grail.

Copernicus Mzine: Every night we watch TV, we see countless examples of visually stunning ads with absolutely no message—sometimes not even a brand name. Do you think this is one manifestation of marketers' obsession with visual identity? What is this obsession doing to their brands?

John Simmons: It is a symptom of marketing's excessive dependence on visual identity. We've had hammered into us that a picture's worth a thousand words. But one right phrase will create a thousand pictures in people's imaginations. What really matters is that brands need to tell stories that connect with the hopes, needs, and lives of customers. You need words to tell those stories. Even if your final ad tells its story entirely through images, advertisers need the discipline of words to create the narrative structure that will give meaning to the ad.

Copernicus Mzine: What did you think of McDonald's spending three years in the U.S. painting restaurants red and white to revitalize the brand?

John Simmons: Don't get me wrong, I believe that visual identity is vital. I'm just arguing for verbal identity to have its equal place in the sun. Some colors—red and white in the McDonald's example—communicate powerfully. Many brands achieve much of their recognition through the consistent use of colors. But I suspect, in the case of McDonald's, this was a symptom of not quite knowing what was really important to its customers, and not being in tune with the way people have been changing. The brand needs to change to reflect the people we are now, and we're less susceptible to some of the cruder visual branding methods of the last century.

Copernicus Mzine: How should marketers go about building verbal identity for their brand? Which companies are models for others to follow?

John Simmons: Start by asking: "who's responsible for our verbal identity?" When the answer comes back "no one," you know you have a problem—and most big brands are in that situation. They have never learned to manage their use of language; it has been devolved without thought or control to different levels of the organization. So you have to own up first to the need to take responsibility. Then recognize that we all use words, but we don't all use words well. Would you put someone who's partially sighted in charge of your visual identity?

In thinking of models, it's interesting that the best examples are some of the youngest brands. They're young but they're growing daily. Brands like Modern Organic Products and Motley Fool, Ben & Jerry's and Crate & Barrel—and more European-based brands like Orange and Egg, Lush and Innocent Drinks. Most of them, as you see, have interesting names too—a name is the first component of verbal identity and often sets the tone for language style that follows.

Copernicus Mzine: If you had the ear of every CEO in the world for five minutes, what would you say to them about delivering a message to buyers about their brands?

John Simmons: I'd ask them if they could tell me what the idea was behind their brand. They should be able to do that in a short sentence, or even a single word. That idea is the narrative theme that should be used to drive all communications, internal and external, visual and verbal. The idea should be there in everything, like lettering running through a stick of candy.

And "we sell cheapest" is not a brand idea. There has to be a better reason to buy than "the guy down the road costs a dollar more." What are you offering me beyond a good price? If you haven't got a clear answer, you haven't got a brand.

You can reach John Simmons with questions and comments at John.Simmons@interbrand.com.

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Not satisfied by the popularity rankings widely reported in the media, we decided to undertake our own analysis of the advertising of Super Bowl XXXVII. After all, popularity provides little insight into whether the commercial "worked" (i.e., has impact) or how much it worked relative to the cost of the investment.

We rank-ordered the 55 national spots that ran during the Super Bowl this year by cost per thousand impacted or CPMI. As discussed in Uncover the Hidden Power of Television Programming, CPMI is the single most important measure of advertising and media effectiveness. It's defined as the cost of the media buy relative to the number of people impacted by the advertising, generally measured in thousands. We further compared the relationship between our rank order based on CPMI with USAToday's Ad Meter, considered the preeminent popularity ranking of Super Bowl ads and based on a "focus group" of 100+ Super Bowl viewers in Virginia.

We found very little relationship existed between our CPMI measure of effectiveness and the Ad Meter in this group of ads. In fact, the correlation (-.22) is weak and negative. Interestingly, there was also very little relationship between our measures of the selling power of an ad—a combination of whether it communicated a clear, differentiating positioning and whether someone would buy the advertised product or service if he or she were in the market for it today—and popularity.

The important lesson here for marketers is to recognize that just because one ad is more popular than another, doesn't mean it worked. This is important to remember particularly during ad tests—which often take place in a focus group.

For more insightful marketing discoveries, visit http://www.copernicusmarketing.com/discover/index.htm

Have a hot discovery for our next release? Contact us at info@copernicusmarketing.com

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"Leading under fire is when the flame burns brightest, when we can see what makes a difference. It is by examining the defining event s of the past, I believe, that we can best understand and remember what we will need for our own leadership in the future." —Michael Useem

Given the uncertainty of the times, we thought we'd pick up a copy of The Leadership Moment, which came highly recommended to us. Nine stories of very different people in very different situations—from a pharmaceutical CEO to a Union Army officer to a NASA flight director—describe the situation prior to, during, and after a critical decision was made, offering insights into both personalities and process. We found it inspirational to read about people triumphing against the odds, and educational to see what went right and wrong with each situation. The book will give readers help and hope for making it through the turbulent months ahead.

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We're still taking nominations for the 2003 Counterintuitive Marketing Hall of Fame and Shame, our on-line tribute to the marketing masterpieces and messes of the recent past and present. As we told you last month, we'd like our readers to share in the celebration of the practice at its very best and embarrassing worst by submitting nominations of companies and brands who displayed marketing greatness or grossness.

For Hall of Famers, we'll consider nominees that have achieved great marketing success adhering to marketing fundamentals such as clearly defining a profitable target and a compelling positioning, developing great advertising which clearly communicates benefits, and maintaining superior customer service. As for the Hall of Shamers, this group has encountered product flops and declining performance. They have no clear positioning or target customer group and their advertising is completely forgettable or confusing; sometimes down right silly or worse, offensive. Their brands simply blend into the crowd, while they give away a first-mover advantage and brand equity.

To make a nomination, go to www.counterintuitivemarketing.com.
Tune in next month when we announce the 2003 inductees.

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