Branding for Share of Mind

The other day, a co-worker walked into my office and asked for a Kleenex. I told her "No." As she stared at me, somewhat perplexed, I continued, "But you may have a tissue." She grimaced, snatched a tissue and marched back out, not appreciating the lesson in semantics or my sense of humor. Kleenex is just one of many brands that have taken the place of the generic terms and are uttered non-chalantly by millions of people daily. Most company presidents would give their right arms and perhaps toss in a leg to have their brand names so well recognized.

Such household words as Coke and Big Mac weren't built in a day, however. Years of marketing and millions of dollars have been spent teaching the public to recognize, understand and embrace those names. The goal is the same for those presidents of smaller wireless companies, yet they do not have the same budgets with which to get their names out to the marketplace. These smaller wireless carriers must be creative and use the tools they do have to increase brand awareness in their respective markets. Their goal is the same as it is for the "big dogs" -- to become the company that potential customers think of when it's time to purchase wireless service.

Taking a Stand The place to start the brand-awareness process, naturally, is at the beginning. The company's position, of which the brand name is one part, is an important aspect of gaining the lion's share of the consumer's collective mind.

"You have to start with positioning," said Aerial's Gerald Rhodes, vice president of sales and marketing. "What do you want to stand for in the mind of the customer? Then, from a well-thought-out positioning, you can start thinking about brand names."

Wireless carriers in general haven't done a good job so far in claiming competitive positions, said Carroll Blackledge, director of marketing for Cellular South.

"Volvo's position is safety," Blackledge said. "Everything they do revolves around safety." He said that in the wireless industry, the players seem to be trying to do the same thing, "so the customer asks himself, 'Why would I choose one over the other?'"

Although turning to branding experts and consultants in the search for an effective corporate identity can be cost-prohibitive to some smaller companies, money is not necessarily a barrier. "Part of it is budget, and part of it is how carefully you use the brand name," Rhodes said. "More money just means that you can remind people more often, but you have to be sure that what you're reminding them more frequently is what you want them to take away."

Aerial wants its customers to take away an understanding of the company's commitment to fairness.

"Our strategy is to be available wherever the customers want to purchase," Rhodes said. "Aerial's service is designed around the customer on the belief that customers know what they want and what they're willing to pay for."

This approach is reflected in Aerial's advertising tagline, "You called. We answered."

Brad Shaver, executive director at consulting firm Ashton Adams, said that companies could do a lot on their own to develop a strong brand. The inside sales force members can gather information as they go out on sales calls, he said, but the most important thing is to find out what piques the interest of customers.

"It sounds real basic, but a lot of people don't do that," he said.

Jean Pelegrin, marketing communications manager at Air-adigm, said that although her company hadn't yet locked in a brand-marketing plan, it was considering supporting education in the area. That would involve a number of avenues, such as grade schools, universities and libraries.

"It would be an all-encompassing thing, but would still be more focused than trying to support everything in the community," Pelegrin said.

The Name Game Once a carrier has determined its initial goals for positioning in the market, choosing the right brand can mean the difference between success and failure, according to many branding experts. But how do you choose a name without spending the big bucks to hire a corporate-identity expert?

"You deal with it the same way (as the larger carriers)," Shaver said. "You look at what everybody else is doing, you look at your competitors and how they're positioned, and you really try to find that niche."

He added that the name should carry with it a specific message.

"The more functional the name and the easier it is for somebody to understand, the better off you're going to be," he said.

When choosing a name, however, simplicity also is important. It is not enough to find a name that expresses a specific message. The name also should be easy to remember. Consumers literally are bombarded with thousands of brands a day as they drive to and from work, watch television and read the newspaper. Because the average person can only digest so much information, many of those brands go unnoticed. The challenge for you is to make your brand stand out. You need consumers not only to notice your brand, but also to remember the brand when it comes time to purchase wireless service. Shaver warned against overbranding, however.

"If you're a smaller company, and you're trying to streamline your resources, then you may want to consider creating an umbrella brand, which would be a family name that would encompass all of the products," he said. "Once you promote the family name, then you're promoting all of it."

Shaver noted that the danger in that method is that the company image rests on the fortunes of each of its products. If one product bombs, then the entire brand name could take a hit as well.

Airadigm, with its Einstein PCS, is an example of the opposite school of thought when it comes to brand structure.

"We decided to use Airadigm Communications as the corporate name and have brand names for the services that we offer," Pelegrin said.

She said the company wanted the ability to offer different services in the future, whether or not those services are in the telecommunications field.

"Besides, Airadigm is not all that catchy of a name," she said, adding that the more mileage you can get with the name, the better.

"With Einstein Personal Communications, we have the ability to play off the genius factor, the simplicity factor and the smart factor of the phone," Pelegrin said.

Going to Market It's not enough just to come up with a great name, however. Selecting the name is only 5% of the battle, according David Aaker, author of Building Strong Brands.

"You've got to somehow get your message to a pretty cluttered media environment, a pretty expensive media environment," he said.

Creativity -- la Southwest Airlines could be the ticket, according to Aaker. When the airline was getting started, it sported extremely low prices, creatively painted planes and joke-telling flight attendants to get attention.

"Everybody was talking about them; everybody was writing about them," he said.

Aside from sensationalist tactics, innovative distribution channels also are a means of placing yourself at the top of consumers' minds. Rural Cellular has more than 150 agents, so a consumer could purchase its Cellular 2000 service anywhere from the local farm implement dealership to a RadioShack, said Ann Elliott, manager of corporate communications.

"We have people selling our products and service that actually are your friend or somebody that you've done business with all your life or somebody that perhaps is related to you," Elliott said. "You may have just purchased jumper cables at Napa auto parts store last week, and you go back the next to buy our service."

On the other end of the spectrum from displaying the brand on every street corner is showcasing products and services at kiosks in WalMart and other retail outlets. That is the route Cellular South has taken throughout Mississippi.

"What that means to us is whether a person buys a phone or not, everybody that walks in -- and on any given Saturday, that's about 10% of the population -- is going to see our signage and our booth," Blackledge said. "They may just ask us for directions to the soap, but they will have some affiliation with us."

Blackledge agreed that one of the keys to success is both establishing and maintaining brand awareness. Although not everyone has a phone today, and not everyone is going to get one tomorrow, he said that when a potential customer does start thinking about wireless service, he wants Cellular South to be the first carrier to come to mind.

Community Relations One edge that the smaller carriers might have over the large, nationwide providers is their relationship with the communities in their markets. The "small town" mentality can go a long way in business relationships because consumers are more apt to purchase from someone they already know. One way to nurture that carrier-consumer relationship is through special-event sponsorships.

The 50,000-square-foot Aerial Theater at Bayou Place, a live entertainment venue in Houston, is one example. Besides having the title name on the theater, the company has a retail presence in the complex and will provide wireless telephone service throughout the theater.

Aerial also teams up with supermarkets to provide free local wireless calls to consumers while they shop. The "store-in-a-store" concept provides a service for consumers while increasing visibility. Rhodes said the company also has sponsored several charities and events in the Kansas City area, including the Labor Day Spirit Festival, the Ronald McDonald House, a jazz hall of fame and a shelter for battered women.

Donating manpower can sometimes be just as important. In some of the smaller communities, carrier employees are "out in the field" participating in or helping out with charity events. Pelegrin said that Airadigm is becoming involved in events that are geared to the people in the community, such as marathons and crafts festivals.

"It makes us part of the community because we live and work in the community too, so we really care about what goes on," she said.

She said that the company has gotten a lot of good visibility by offering free calls at such events.

Blackledge said employees at Cellular South also work at being part of the community through activities such as fund-raising walks, golf tournaments and sailboat races. He said company management believed in reinvesting the resources in the community because it benefits everybody.

"I don't think any one event makes a difference, but being constantly involved in these events across our service area over time makes a significant difference in top-of-mind awareness of who we are," Blackledge said. "I think it's good for the community to see our employees involved in aspects of the community besides business."

Teaming Up Keeping in mind that the whole is often greater than the sum of its parts can be an advantage when approaching the share-of-mind issue. In that sense, history may be about to repeat itself. Jim Healy, general manager of Cook Inlet Western Wireless, said that thinking about how the smaller carriers would compete against the larger ones reminded him of the early days of cellular. In those days, many of the smaller, non-wireline players banded together and began marketing under the name Cellular One to compete against the phone companies.

"It created the image of one company that was much bigger than a little local company," Healy said. "We start the process again with the PCS players."

Only now there are alliances such as the GSM Alliance and the CDMA Development Group (cdmaOne). Carriers participating in these efforts use alliance logos as well as their own company logos, providing nationwide recognition somewhat on the order of the Cirrus or Plus marks on bank cards.

Despite the fact that smaller wireless carriers often are working with limited budgets, they are coming up with innovative ways of getting their messages to the masses. As Shaver said, everybody is on the same playing field; all of the wireless companies are competing for awareness. Survival is a matter of minimizing weaknesses and accentuating strengths. If the message is strong and simple and is consistently delivered, it eventually will find its way to the top of the consumer's mind. After all, even Coke and McDonalds had to start somewhere.

Not only are carriers taking advantage of sponsorships to increase brand awareness, but vendors are entering the arena of high-profile agreements as well. Ericsson and Qualcomm both are sponsoring sports stadiums.

Ericsson has a 10-year agreement with the Carolina Stadium Corporation to have the name of the Charlotte, NC, stadium, home of the National Football League Carolina Panthers. The 72,680-seat, natural-grass stadium contains a 24-foot by 32-foot color replay board, a 17-foot by 32-foot animation board and a 10 foot x50 foot, scoreboard.

Qualcomm has a 20-year agreement with the city of San Diego for naming and signage rights in exchange for $18 million to complete the second phase of the current stadium. The expanded stadium, which is the home of the San Diego Chargers, the San Diego Padres and the San Diego State University Aztecs, played host to Super Bowl XXXII on Jan. 25. The 71,450-seat natural-grass stadium features two video scoreboards and 110 luxury skyboxes.