By David Heitman

We’re feeling grateful to have recently landed three new clients who are arguably the thought leaders in their respective fields: an electronic medical records (EMR) innovator; a modular casework manufacturer; and an IT services pioneer. All are poised for dramatic—not merely incremental—revenue growth.

We’ve been inspired by their vision…and just a little intimidated by their genius.

Our work consists in distilling these companies’ innovative leadership into unique messaging capable of gaining traction with their audiences. Beyond having developed superior products and services, they still need to compete for mindshare and brand recognition.

As we do our discovery process with these smart people, we always end up identifying the one indispensable thing they bring to their customers and prospects—the one thing that their industries would be diminished by if our clients did not exist.

Only true market leaders can claim this rarified air, but any company that takes the time to dig deeply into its core values and unique virtues can potentially reach this pinnacle.

One of the ways we jumpstart the conversation that leads to this kind of brand discovery is:

“If your organization did not exist, what would the world be missing?”

The answer to that question is at the heart of a company’s brand. If it can’t be answered, perhaps more work needs to be done defining exactly what the organization really does best.

Another question we ask is:

“What values are you willing to hold at all costs, even if it means losing business?”

While this is essentially an ethical question, asking it has enabled us to uncover the foundation of a client’s brand, and position them uniquely within their market space. Whether it’s an unrelenting commitment to the quality of their product or the superiority of their service culture, there is always something that leads to an authentic brand that can be communicated with passion and credibility.

By David Heitman

Seems like self-deprecating humility and yielding to the social media-equipped masses are in vogue these days.

Dominos Pizza, in an effort to capitalize on the social media-driven world of “listenomics,” is running a massive campaign that amounts to a mea culpa for decades of making really bad pizza. They admit the old stuff tasted like “ketchup on cardboard.”

We are now asked to believe that they have listened to their customers, and have built the best pizza ever as a result. The integrated television, radio and web effort includes “focus group” tapes where members complain about the old Domino’s pizza and a website where people are free to write their critiques on a rotating, Twitter-like wall of feedback.

While the effort certainly takes some interesting risks, it seems a bit heavy-handed in its delivery. It’s an effort to control and pre-package user-generated content in such a way that only one conclusion is possible: New Domino’s tastes better than old Domino’s. It’s pretty clear the “focus group” comments were story-boarded and approved long before they were taped.

It’s sort of like watching a movie whose outcome is clear in the first five minutes.

The other thing that makes this well-executed, yet transparently manipulated, effort seem insincere is that in previous commercials we were told by Domino’s that “Quality comes first, custom baking each pizza with carefully selected, skillfully prepared ingredients.”

(What exactly is a “skillfully-prepared ingredient” anyway?)

So does all this mean that in another few years we’ll be asked to believe that Really, Really New Domino’s is way better than that old 2010 New Domono’s?

The lesson here is that when companies try to crassly bend customer feedback—real or orchestrated–and try to leverage user-generated commentary to push their products, it usually falls flat.

Example: Microsoft’s TV commercials showcasing “real” people whose ideas were incorporated into Windows, saying, “Windows 7 was my idea and I’m a PC.”

The over-processed, documentary-style approach doesn’t fool anybody. And besides, do you know anyone who would actually say “I’m a PC”? (especially after Apple’s award-winning campaign of the decade in which the PC is personified by a doofy Bill Gates look-alike.)

Simply stated, the Domino’s and Microsoft commercials fail the authenticity test. Like bloodless zombies, they aren’t human, despite their large numbers.

Should the New Domono’s or Microsoft 7 campaigns prove to be successful, it will largely be the result of frequency paid for with tens of millions of media dollars. If annoying local car dealers, personal injury lawyers and furniture stores are proof of anything, it’s that frequency alone can generate results.

The problem is that mere repeition is incapable of building all-important brand attachment. It just confirms that Domino’s is a coupon-driven commodity with no loyalty, hooked like a junkie on frequency.

By David Heitman

Much like college football’s national championship this week, the new year promises to be a decisive and defining one for most businesses. It will be a year that separates companies still stuck in power-save mode from those that step out and make intelligent, creative, calculated risks.

For this latter group—entrepreneurs and companies poised to grasp market share—the following trends are likely to fuel their positive year ahead:

1) Digital Collaboration and Feedback. The ability to gather inputs from customers, vendors, colleagues and analysts is at an all-time high. Social media technology has enabled this capability for virtually zero infrastructure cost, though it still requires careful management and analysis. An intentional social media strategy will become standard equipment for most successful companies.

2) Enabling Self-Sufficiency. Businesses will make their customers more self-sufficient. Authors will publish more of their own books. Patients will handle more of their own health records. Music lovers will configure more of their own radio stations. And consumers will design more of their own apparel. Trying to hold customers captive will backfire as they instinctively move to open source solutions.

3) Technology-Driven Innovation. Even as the world languished in a year of deep recession, technological innovation steamed forward largely unabated. The convergence of phone/computer/television/camera/PDA/radio will continue to improve the quality of the user experience, getting faster, better and cheaper with each passing day. But this means that companies will need to have a broad, multi-platform communication strategy to be sure they are reaching their audience. Going granular and reaching that “audience of one” on his or her terms—and doing it a million times—will pay big dividends that mass media can no longer deliver.

4) Brand Still Rules. Technology changes, but people don’t, and therefore the importance of brand remains. Brands are belief systems, and people will still make choices—for products, services, candidates and policies—based on the credibility and attraction of the brands they encounter.

5) Good Execution of the Details. With more moving parts in the marketing toolbox than ever before, good tactical execution will separate the winners from the losers. This great execution will need to happen even as prices for many products and services are still dropping. The old adage “do more with less” will define the demands of consumers and B2B buyers alike in nearly every category. Only the truly proprietary service or product gets a free pass here.

The new year began with 34 college bowl games, and now the slate of NFL playoffs is set. As every football fan knows, third down efficiency is one of the keys to success for any team—perhaps one of the defining statistics of championship teams. This economy still has most of us in a “third and long” situation, but that’s when we are all at our best. Convert a first down, and you get to keep playing.

The only other alternative is to punt.