Tag: branding

This morning on my way in to the office I was informed at my local Tim Hortons that they would be changing the names of ALL of their hot cup sizes. The reason for this change is evidently the introduction of a new 24oz cup size.

What Tim Hortons did would seem somewhat logical to many. Since their previous largest size cup was called the ‘extra large’, they took the new 24oz cup and called THAT the ‘extra large’. Each subsequently smaller cup took the name of the next smaller size. ie: Medium became Small, Large became Medium, and so on.

The thing is…

Tim Hortons is a Canadian institution. It is the morning ritual of millions of Canadians, and is so ingrained in our culture, we snicker when visitors to our country feel compelled to ask what on earth a ‘Double Double’ is.

People are so accustomed to ordering a certain thing at their Tim Hortons, that having to adjust such a strong habit they’ve not changed EVER will likely be a source of frustration. Not only that, but by show of hands, how many people here know exactly what size their family, friends and co-workers drink? WOW! That’s a lot of hands.

Example: You work at a place with a small group of other coffee drinkers. Most of them like Tim’s coffee, and there just so happens to be one located a couple of blocks from your place of business. There’s a morning routine that occurs, without fail, every day. At 10am, you each rock-paper-scissors to see who’s going to make the coffee run. You lose the match, and so you don your coat and hat and venture out in to the world to obtain the mid-morning fix for your crew.

But lo! When you arrive you are greeted with a peculiar situation. None of the sizes match up to the order you’ve been placing every morning for a decade. Tragedy! Do you think your co-workers would want the larger sizes? Or the sizes you’ve been accustomed to consuming? If you use the same names, then you’ve got everyone a bigger cup (at higher cost) than what they really wanted. If you use the new names, you need to process a downsizing conversion in your head for every drink. And each of your co-workers hits the same problem the first time it becomes their turn to make the order under the new system.

This stinks.

Now, I realize this is hardly something to go nuts over. It’s just inconvenient, and doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Here’s what most of us probably would have done:

Adding a new bigger cup size? Hmm…. Well the biggest we have is called the ‘Extra Large’. We could rename every cup in the lineup, thus creating confusion out in the marketplace as to what you’re actually ordering. Or, we could take the one, singular, solitary new cup size and give it a unique name, keeping everything else intact. We could call it the Mega, Jumbo, Super, Max, etc. The list could really be quite long. There’s no shortage of synonyms for ‘big’.

Anyway, that’s my little rant. This new cup addition could have been done in a better, easier to understand, and more seamless way. But now, beginning on Monday January 23rd, LOTS of people will have a morning that’s not what they expect. We’ll adapt, sure, but this is one situation where it was totally and completely unnecessary.

Jonathan on Google+

December 14, 2011

Retrospect – My 5 Favourite Personal Blog Posts from 2011

by Jonathan Barrick

2011 has been a fascinating year for Marketers, and for me especially. Businesses everywhere are opening their eyes to the inescapable truth that social communications are now essential for success, and with this change comes a tremendous shift in the way businesses conduct themselves and communicate with their communities. Looking at the usage stats, this is hardly surprising.

Social communications are altering the way we do everything. Facebook, as the largest social network, has ingrained itself in to the daily life of virtually everyone in North America, in one form or another. Even if you personally don’t have an account (which seems highly unlikely), everyone around you does. We are ALL impacted in some way by social communications, and to deny it is simply naive. It’s changed the way we keep in touch with those in our lives. It’s changed how we express happiness and how we make our outrage known. It’s changed how we think about our personal privacy, and what our rights are.

It’s changed our culture.

Throughout the year, I’ve stumbled across hundreds of excellent insights written by hundreds of brilliant people. I thought about scouring my Twitter archive and digging up a handful of the most potent articles from the year, but I quickly realized that this would be a nearly impossible task. There’s simply too much good stuff to sort through. So, I thought I’d just go through my own stuff and choose a handful of my favourite articles that were no doubt inspired by all that great stuff. It’s an easy compromise, I suppose, but I’m ok with that.

So, here’s a short list of some of my own personal blog posts that I’m proud of this year. They’re not necessarily the most ‘commented on’, or the ‘most shared’ posts I wrote, but they’re the ones that really resonated with me when I wrote them. I hope you enjoy them!

1 – The Twitterized Classroom

This article looks at how I attempted to use social communications to enhance the learning in a college classroom setting. Social media is stereotypically looked at as nothing more than a pervasive distraction by teachers, but I think the results of this might surprise you!

2 – Social Strategies for Uncommon Businesses

This article was written for all those companies who look at Social Media and think “I get how it works for Starbucks, but what am I supposed to do for MY business??” There’s a lot of different options and approaches, so this is intended to help you choose where to begin.

3 – Powerful Brand Experiences – The Story of Two Coffee Shops

I get a bit nostalgic in this one. I look at how brand-building goes beyond a logo or Pantone colour and consists of a complete sensory experience. My own experiences with two fantastic coffee shops illustrate just how strong these connections can be.

4 – 3 Lessons About Social Media Learned From Transformers

This one was fun. Inspiration can be drawn from anywhere, and therefore anything can be turned in to an analogy. Here I take a few anecdotes from the classic ‘good robots vs. evil robots’ battle for the universe that helped define my childhood.

5 – Getting a Head-Start Through LinkedIn

Historically, your career began on graduation day. Now? It begins the moment you set foot on campus for the first time. The connections you make, the activities you participate in, the internships you take, and the faculty you impress are all part of building your ‘personal brand’.

Well, there you have it! 2011 was a tremendous year in marketing, and I foresee 2012 being even better! This ‘social’ roller coaster hasn’t even crested the first hill yet, and I’m pretty sure we’re in for one heck of a ride next year!

Jonathan on Google+

August 5, 2011

Powerful Brand Experiences – The Story of Two Coffee Shops

by Jonathan Barrick

What makes a brand experience so powerful that customers will drive a half-hour just for a cup of coffee?

I love coffee. That’s no secret, to be sure. Lots of us do. But for me, and for many others, the whole ‘experience’ of coffee stretches way beyond just what’s in the cup. It’s a sensory experience that complete with sights, sounds, smells, and of course the taste of the great coffee.

This is why Starbucks is so successful at charging a premium for a simple ‘cup of coffee’. Their customers place additional value on the environment and the experience that Starbucks provides, and they are some of the fiercest brand advocates you’ll ever meet. Long before I discovered Starbucks, however, I was fortunate to have experienced a similar brand adventure at not just one, but two independent coffee shops. Each one had a totally different approach, but they both turned me in to one of their most dedicated customers.

The first coffee shop that earned my brand advocacy occurred a long time ago. It was a little coffee/cigar shop in the downtown area of Barrie, called Lil’ Habanas. I discovered this place through a high-school friend after he raved about how great the coffee was. We went down there one evening with a group of friends, and what an evening it turned out to be!

It was a totally new experience for me, as I’d never really been in a cigar shop before. The smell of a Cohiba and Montecristo cigars filled the air, mixing with the aroma of fresh brewed coffee. Classic literature filled the shelves, ready to be picked up and thumbed through. Chess boards and leather lounge chairs were setup near the humidors in the back. Lighting was strategically placed where it needed to be, but not so much that it was too bright in the place. The owner of the business was always behind the counter, ready to guide you through their selection of both coffee and tobacco. It was a complete sensory experience unlike any other.

The crown jewel of the Lil’ Habanas experience, however, was a unique coffee that you couldn’t get anywhere else. It was called ‘Chico’s House Swill’, and it was mind-blowing. See, this coffee was created only once in a while. When some of the bean canisters of the different flavours would get nearly empty, Chico would take all the miscellaneous leftover beans and toss them in to one canister, grind ‘em all up, and brew the results. For some reason, this ended up as the best coffee I’ve ever had, even to this day. It was different every time you had it, and you were never disappointed. It was magic.

Sadly, Lil’ Habanas closed its doors after a handful of years, but I’ll never forget the experience of walking in the door, being greeted by the familiar scents of coffee and tobacco, and being overjoyed that one of the coffee pots proudly displayed the ‘House Swill’ label.

The second coffee house that had me at ‘hello’, was called Coffee & All That Jazz. If you live in Toronto, you might be familiar with it, as they still have a location operating on Howard Park Ave. But the location that captured me wasn’t the one in Toronto, but in the small town of Cookstown, about a 45 minute drive north of Toronto, and about 25 minutes south of Barrie. The Cookstown location was in an old home on the main intersection, entirely converted in to a coffee house.

The environment couldn’t have been more different than Lil’ Habanas. Bright windows, eclectic artwork by local artists, gorgeous vintage coffee bean canisters, and the entire home was filled with the greatest in classic and modern jazz tunes. Funky mugs featuring retro coffee brand ads, great baked treats and snacks, and a Baskin Robbins-esque selection of flavours that ensured you could try a new taste almost every day for a month. It was great, and there was nothing like it in Barrie.

Now, at this point you might be asking “You drove almost a half-hour just for coffee?” – My answer: You bet. Did it almost every weekend. It was one of our favourite places for my wife and I back when we were dating. I remember vividly driving down highway 27 in the fall, past forests full of gold and red trees, the cool air blowing through our open windows. Then, walking in to the coffee house, greeted by John Coltrane and the smell of fresh espresso.

I’ll never forget being downright depressed when we heard the Cookstown location was closing. It meant a lot to my wife and I, and we always used to admire the photography on the walls and would say ‘We should buy that picture for our first house.’ Well, a few months before Coffee & All That Jazz closed the Cookstown coffee house, I drove back by myself, ordered a cappucino, and asked them if I could buy one of the photographs on the wall, as a gift for my wife. The one I chose: A black & white shot of the vintage coffee canisters. It was the one image that always popped in to our heads whenever we talked about that place.

This image borrowed from http://coffeejazz.ca/

Reminiscing here about these two long-lost coffee shops has been both a wonderful experience for me, and also enlightening. It speaks volumes about how incredibly powerful a unique brand experience can be. It creates fierce advocates, who speak with admiration of your business. It creates dedicated brand loyalists who will drive almost a half-hour for a $2 cup of coffee. It creates memories that shape how your customers will view every other similar business they ever walk in to. By creating a powerful brand experience, you can set the standard by which all others are judged.

I miss those coffee shops, but I’ll sure never forget them.