1. BRAND
AS VERBTHE PRINCIPLES OF
HIGH PERFORMING EXPERIENCE BRANDS

2. STRATEGY DIRECTOR
JACK MORTON WORLDWIDE
@BENGROSSMAN
#BrandAsVerb
2
BEN GROSSMAN

3. 3
TODAY’S AGENDA
BRAND
AS
VERB
5 PRINCIPLES

4. ONCE UPON
A TIME...
4

5. ...defining brands
5
was
enough.

6. 1. What should it be called?
2. What other words describe it?
3. What’s the tagline?
4. How do we make people aware of it?
5. What should its logo look like?
6. What should its logo look like in black and whit
7. Does it have a jingle?
8. How much space should be around its logo?
9. Is it time for an identity refresh?
10. Can we get a trademark on that?
people remember the name?
e energy to it?
6
Marketers thought of brands as
NOUNSthat they could ‘teach’ people.

7. 7
But, in today’s attention economy,
consumers have come to care less
about what brands are saying and
more about what they’re doing.
!

8. 8
But, in today’s attention economy,
consumers have come to care less
about what brands are saying and
more about what they’re doing.
!
social media
rise of the internet
desire for social currency
permanent recession
democratization of influence
mistrust of advertising
technology overload
demographic inversion
Mad Men
fragmentation
corporate skepticism
message fatigue
reflective self-identity

9. 9
Which is why we see brands
today as more a function of how they
act ... how they engage with and
around consumers ... as verbs.

10. BRAND
AS
VERB
10

11. 11
Speaking of which...
HOW
ARE
BRANDS
DOING?

12. 12
Not well.
HOW
ARE
BRANDS
DOING?

13. 13
80%of leaders say their
brands offer a superior
customer experience.

14. 14
80%of leaders say their
brands offer a superior
customer experience.
8%of consumers
agree.

15. 15
The fact is that, today, marketers are tortured
by the fact that the #1 way people learn
about and buy from their brands is the hardest
one to control: word-of-mouth.

16. 16
of people advocate for
brands by describing their
experiences with them.
74%

17. 17
of what closes sales is a
combination between that
word-of-mouth and
consumers’ personal
experiences.
79%

18. 18
REAL LIFE
REAL IMPACT
IN A WORLD OF BRANDS AS VERBS, WHAT YOU DO IN
IS CRITICAL TO HAVING A

19. 19
TODAY’S AGENDA
BRAND
AS
VERB
5 PRINCIPLES
ADD VALUE
INVITE PARTICIPATION
USER-FIRST DESIGN
INSPIRE SHARING
ON THE WAY

20. 20
PRINCIPLE 1
ADD
VALUEBrands that last are the ones that give more than they
take from consumers’ lives. In a world filled with
handheld – or even wearable – second screens,
consumers are better than ever at tuning out marketers’
attempts to appeal to them.
At the same time, consumers are seeking out and
signing up to hear from brands that offer them value: a
utility, a conversation starter, helpful how-to instructions
that help them through a challenge. The value scale is a
delicate one, but if brands stay focused on keeping it
balanced – or tipped towards consumers – it gives them
significant credibility and access to share of wallet.

21. 21PRINCIPLE 1
ADD VALUE
KLM Meet & Seat
One of the worst parts of traveling is sitting
next to (or worse, between) total strangers.
KLM found a way to shift a negative aspect
of its customer experience into a potentially
very valuable one.
KLM’s Meet & Seat lets you find out about
interesting people who will be on board
your KLM flight by sharing your Facebook,
Google+ or LinkedIn profile details. Then,
you can choose your seat based on who
you’d like to meet – perhaps a good
business contact, someone with similar
interests or an long lost college friend.

22. 22PRINCIPLE 1
ADD VALUE
Lean In & Getty Images
Nonprofits often must tow the difficult line between
the constant need to ask supporters for funds,
while also providing the value that is at the core of
their mission. Along the way, many come off as
needy, preachy or even inefficient. Facebook’s
COO, Sheryl Sandberg, found a way for her
nonprofit, Lean In, to both further its cause and
generate funding at once.
In a partnership with Getty Images, a popular
stock photography site, Lean In launched a
collection of stock photos dedicated to women’s
empowerment. The collection features over 2,500
images of female leadership in contemporary
work and life. A portion of proceeds from the
Lean In Collection go toward the creation of Getty
Images grants for images showcasing female
empowerment and to supporting the mission of
the nonprofit.

23. 23PRINCIPLE 1
ADD VALUE
Ikea’s Second Hand
Campaign
Ikea doesn’t exactly have a reputation for
making the most durable goods – but the
fact is that many customers own their home
furnishings for years without significant
wear. Core to Ikea’s value proposition,
however, is a price point that enables
consumers to refresh their environments well
before the furniture has tired.
So to help show the longevity of its products,
while also allowing consumers to move on to
its newly introduced products, Ikea launched
"The Second Hand Campaign." The
campaign advertised customers' used Ikea
products through outdoor, print, broadcast
and web banners. Beyond that, Ikea turned
its Facebook Page into a digital flea market
for sellers and buyers to meet each Sunday.

24. 24
PRINCIPLE 2
INVITE
PARTICIPATION
The best brands focus on managing a community of
supporters, rather than on managing a set of brand
standards. Brands that implicitly invite participation –
without demanding it – are the ones that rule in a world
where consumers will participate whether the brand asks
or not.
When consumers can find ways to contribute ideas or
influence the brand and its experiences, feeling a sense
of ownership and authorship, it makes it easier for the
brand to activate that person as an advocate. And
because participation requires engagement, consumers’
brand encounters are also more memorable over time.

25. 25PRINCIPLE 2
INVITE PARTICIPATION
Cotton
24-Hour Runway
As the only fabric suitable for all 24 hours of the
day, Cotton has an annual tradition of hosting a
24 Hour Runway complete with a look every
minute – 1440 total. This time, Cotton employed
a Style Search Squad that traveled across the
country to find the most diverse cotton looks and
celebrate consumers’ local style. Users were
invited to submit their looks for a chance to
inspire the final style on the runway.
Once finalists had been selected, users voted to
select the six regional style setters who have
inspired a nation of cotton style enthusiasts. They
represented their regional cotton style at Cotton’s
24-Hour Runway Show in South Beach. In doing
so, Cotton effectively moved a runway show from
passive viewers to active participants who
walked away with a compelling experience.

26. 26PRINCIPLE 2
INVITE PARTICIPATION
Pop Secret’s Pop Dongle
Some brands are so simple that in order to
invite participation and become closer with
their consumers, the brands must create
ancillary brand experiences beyond their core
offering. Enter Pop Secret’s Pop Dongle: a
mobile phone attachment that emits the sweet-
and-salty smell of popcorn as you play the
brand's mobile game, Poptopia.
Each time users swipe the butter inside the
game, driving players to pop corn kernels, the
Dongle will emit a spritz of popcorn scent.
The Pop Dongle represents Pop Secret's first
test of a non-edible product in the market. The
company has created three limited edition
Dongles being auctioned off on eBay, with
proceeds going to the American Red Cross.

27. 27PRINCIPLE 2
INVITE PARTICIPATION
San Pelligrino’s
Robot Trips to Italy
A core part of San Pelligrino’s brand is the
delivery of Italian culture with its product. To
help deliver on the sparkling water's promise,
it launched a "Three Minutes in Italy"
promotion. Leveraging five robots, on August
8th through 17th, Facebook users could
remotely control robots, in real-time that
toured around Italy – meeting new people
and taking in the culture.
San Pellegrino's Facebook fans were able to
participate by signing up to drive the ground-
bots for 180 seconds, viewing the town in
live. The robots were equipped with tablets
displaying users' Facebook profile pictures,
and a translation program allowed
participants to talk with local residents with
the help of an on-the-ground ambassador.

28. 28
PRINCIPLE 3
USER
FIRST
DESIGNGreat experiences start with a solid set of consumer
insights about how a brand fits around its users. By
understanding consumers’ natural inclinations towards
and behaviors with your product, service or
organization and catering to it, experiences become
more efficient and more effective. Investment required
to get people involved decreases, because people don't
need to be convinced.
In addition to the broad success that user-first design
creates, it also has a broader halo effect on the brand.
Often, empathetic brand experiences stand out from a
pack that appears deaf to consumers wants, needs
and dreams.

29. 29PRINCIPLE 3
USER FIRST DESIGN
LEGO Star Wars
Secrets to Reveal
To reignite brand loyalty for LEGO Star Wars
and build excitement for the TV launch of
Yoda Chronicles, LEGO got to the core of
what made its consumers tick. By
understanding the important collaborative
nature of LEGO building between parents and
kids, combined with the power of the Star
Wars property, the brand created an epic and
contagiously shareable campaign for adults
and kids alike.
The campaign prompted participants to
discover what secrets Yoda had to reveal.
Through a series of in-store, digital and live
guessing experiences, Yoda ultimately
revealed his (and LEGO’s) biggest secret ever
– the largest LEGO creation ever, an X-Wing
fighter, was revealed in Times Square, leading
to #LEGOstarwarsNYC trending on Twitter.

30. 30PRINCIPLE 3
USER FIRST DESIGN
Budweiser Canada
Hockey Alarm
Last year, Budweiser found an important
audience truth that tied to its product:
Budweiser is in hand at hockey’s biggest
moments. The brand dedicated itself to taking
the fan experience to the next level by
creating the Bud Red Light – a wi-fi enabled
iconic goal light and horn.
Budweiser actually put the product on sale –
selling out its first batch in 2013 in no time. It
even created content about a representative
from the brand installing Red Lights in its
consumers homes to generate further
demand. Though it certainly is unusual for a
beer company to get into an Internet of Things
product, Budweiser’s user-first design guided
the brand to a huge success.

31. 31PRINCIPLE 3
USER FIRST DESIGN
Target’s
Simplicity Challenge
As Target monitored the issues and conversations
that were important to its employees and guests, it
found that healthcare was one of the remaining
parts of its business that wasn’t as straightforward
as consumers would have liked. Target launched a
means to draw from the wisdom of the end-users:
the Simplicity Challenge, a nationwide search for
innovative ideas to simplify healthcare.
The initiative, built to crowdsource the best ideas
for healthcare from students, innovators, designers
and entrepreneurs, underscores the retailer’s
commitment to creating simple and engaging
experiences. The Target Simplicity Challenge
launched with the purpose of helping people make
positive lifestyle and prevention choices and
helping people live well with a chronic condition.
Ideas were put to a public vote prior to a grand
prize being dispensed and Target working to
implement it.

32. 32
PRINCIPLE 4
INSPIRE
SHARINGBrands can’t buy the most powerful form of advertising:
recommendations of family and friends. But marketers
can give consumers something that they actually want to
talk about and share. A combination between a brilliant
creative idea, execution that is native to social platforms
and in-person conversations and social purpose can
inspire third party endorsements that work to create the
shortest path to purchase possible.
In a generation defined by the ‘like’ button and prompts
to ‘tweet us’, however, brands must be discerning. It
takes a lot more than the click of a button or 140
characters to truly develop a bond with a brand. And
there’s a difference between demanding or incentivizing
sharing and truly inspiring it. At the end of the day, the
consumers sharing know the difference and so do the
recipients of their sentiments.

33. 33PRINCIPLE 4
INSPIRE SHARING
Dove Real
Beauty Sketches
Knowing that all great sharing success stories
start with great content, Dove found a
polarizing topic for the brand to speak out
about: Over half (54%) of women globally
agree that when it comes to how they look,
they are their own worst beauty critic, which
equates to 672 million women around the
world.
Dove’s Real Beauty Sketches video, which
uses an FBI-trained sketch artist to show
women that they’re seen as more beautiful
than they see themselves, garnered more than
114 million views in its first month released.
The video was shared 3.74 million times,
which makes it the third most shared video of
all time – yielding one of the best share to
view rates of all time.

34. 34PRINCIPLE 4
INSPIRE SHARING
Honda’s Project
Drive-In
Brands can also trigger sharing by
bringing underrepresented issues to light
for consumers. Honda recently launched
Project Drive-In, the brand’s national
effort to help save drive-ins facing closure
due to the end of 35mm film distribution.
Through the effort, Honda has been able
to generate a groundswell of support for
drive-ins, encouraging users to share the
cause with family and friends to help
fund the theaters.
By leveraging crowd-funding platform
Indiegogo along with ProjectDriveIn.com,
Honda has been able to save several of
the nation’s storied drive-ins. Meanwhile,
Honda has connected its brand with one
of America’s favorite past-times and a
feel-good mission.

35. 35PRINCIPLE 4
INSPIRE SHARING
Nivea’s Dare to Dip
Nivea believes women are at their best when
they feel confident in their natural skin. Yet
79% of women in the UK cover up their ‘bikini
bellies’ in public. Nivea set out to change that
and celebrate women who were willing to
break the mold and dare to take their first dip
of the summer in a very exposed way.
Women were encouraged to sign up to take
their first plunge of the summer in glass tanks
in London’s Covent Garden. So many women
were inspired by the call to action that tickets
sold out in 24 hours. Women were so excited
to share their newfound confidence that they
demanded more opportunities to Dare to Dip,
so the campaign set out on the road. Nivea
crowdsourced the demand for other dipping
locations and over 70,000 women shared
their pledge online. The campaign since has
expanded across the continent.

36. 36
PRINCIPLE 5
ON
(NOT IN)
THE WAYBrands have evolved — from the interruptions between
the content you really wanted to view — to,
increasingly, the creators of content you can’t help but
consume and share.
The fuse on “native advertising” is short (though it works
today), because not enough brands are taking its
quality seriously. As regulations tighten and consumers
grow wise to advertisers’ tricks, brands stand to once
again become barriers that consumers avoid, rather
than the destinations they seek.

37. 37PRINCIPLE 5
ON (NOT IN) THE WAY
IBM Smart Ideas for
Smarter Cities
One of the greatest examples of the
evolution of marketing from disruptive
product-based selling to an on the way
thought leadership campaign is IBM’s
work with Smarter Cities. The brand’s
campaign is a centrifuge of inspiration
and helpful content meant to inspire the
world’s leaders to imagine solutions to
some of the world’s greatest problems.
As an extension of the campaign, IBM
launched a series of outdoor ads around
Paris that double as a bench, a shelter or
a ramp. The functional twist on otherwise
interruptive advertising delivers perfectly
on the sentiment behind IBM’s Smarter
Cities campaign.

38. 38PRINCIPLE 5
ON (NOT IN) THE WAY
Flower Council of
Holland Emergency
Flowers
This Valentine’s Day, the Flower Council of
Holland installed 1,500 ‘emergency’ flower
boxes containing a rose. Each one reads,
"In case of love at first sight, break glass.”
The cellophane exterior allowed passer-bys
easy access to the flower within and the
resulting video showing the boxes in use
was a romantic way to reach consumers
around one of the flower industry’s biggest
days of the year.
Consumers were sent to continue the
journey online, where they could use Twitter
and Facebook to get a chance to win their
very own boxes. They were also
encouraged to share the video with their
social networks.

39. 39PRINCIPLE 5
ON (NOT IN) THE WAY
Red Tomato Pizza
VIP Fridge Magnet
In Dubai, home delivery is the norm
when it comes to food, but restaurants
that consumers eat at frequently never
remember their customers’ orders. Red
Tomato Pizza knew that they wanted to
generate more loyalty and retain its best
customers and that this dynamic
presented a serious problem.
Red Tomato changed the delivery playing
field by creating a VIP Fridge Magnet
that was Bluetooth connected to
consumers’ smart devices. At the push of
a fridge magnet button, an order was
placed for that consumer’s favorite pizza
instantly. Preferences could be adjusted
online and the brand experience soared
as a result.

40. Contact: Liz Bigham
E: liz_bigham@jackmorton.com
Read our blog at blog.jackmorton.com
Follow us on twitter @jackmorton
Visit us online at jackmorton.com
About Jack Morton
We’re an award-winning brand experience agency that turns brands into
verbs and transforms customer experience into a competitive asset.
We make brilliant things happen for our clients. We do that by bringing
together brave, creative people who are true believers in the power of
experience to transform brands and businesses.
We’re experts in brand experience strategy and activation. Our clients
look to us to define and understand how their brands should behave in
the marketplace, and create experiences that bring their brands to life.
Our portfolio of award-winning work spans 75 years and clients like
GM, Subway, Samsung and Verizon in areas like event marketing, retail
experience, digital, social, mobile, sponsorship and employee engagement.
Our team works together across 22 locations all around the world. We’re
also part of one of the world’s leading marketing holding companies,
Interpublic (NYSE: IPG), and experienced collaborators with a global
network of best-in-class partners.
© Jack Morton Worldwide 2014
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