Marketing Talk

Just seen this endearing little video on the web, heralding the arrival in our shops of Levi’s ‘Water<less’ jeans — with more than a nod to the classic commercial ‘Laundrette’ which boosted sales of 501s (and, apparently, revived the fortunes of boxer shorts) as 80s heart throb Nick Kamen removed his to the delight of a gaggle of laundering ladies.

In Marketing Talk’s humble opinion ‘Water<less’ is a slightly misleading act of branding. The jeans are not waterless in the sense of having banished water from how they are made (cf ‘meaningless’). Instead Levis has found a way of finishing the garments which uses less water than its previous processes did. The ‘less than’ symbol (<) clarifies the point in written manifestations of the brand, assuming you’re famliar with mathematical notation of course. Somehow ‘Lesswater’ jeans does not have the same ring, though it’s possibly more accurate.

Still, let us not take away from this step in the right environmental direction. Even the company itself underlines in its press release about the new development that the vast majority of water that goes into a pair of jeans happens before they are manufactured (in cotton irrigation) and after they are sold (as consumers subject them to frequent washes between short bouts of wearing them). But the new development means that in the finishing process (where new pairs of jeans go through a number of washing cycles in order to improve their texture) water consumption is reduced by an average of 28%.

On its own, perhaps this is not such a dramatic environmental claim. But it’s part of a wider branding strategy aiming at sustainable production and consumption. While researching more water-efficient ways of cultivating cotton, Levis is also co-opting consumers in its water-saving effort. The new care tags in each garment feature instructions about reducing the environmental impact of clothes by washing them less often, washing in cold water, line rather than tumble drying and recycling via charity shops when no longer needed.

Cynics might see this as a way of passing the environmental buck to the much put-upon consumer. After all, the majority of global warming takes place because of the activities of organisations rather than individuals. Why not sort out cotton growing and manufacturing before lecturing the jeans-wearing public that they are overdoing it on the washing front?

But perhaps a better way of understanding the ‘Water<less’ launch is as an illustration of how manufacturers and consumers need to act together to create a more sustainable economy. Marketing isn’t just about organisations making and selling things, it’s about consumers using and disposing of them. — a complete system where changes in how manufacturers act need to be complemented by changes in consumer behaviour if they are to have a positive environmental impact.

Coffee-lovers the world over are spluttering into their cappucinos at the news that Starbucks, the Seattle-based global coffee empire, is changing its logo for 2011 and its 40th anniversary. Gone are the words ‘Starbucks Coffee’ and the green ring which contained them and two stars. We are left with the enigmatic female figure alone, untrammelled by letters or border, although she has gone from black to green. Howard Schultz, the entrepreneur who bought the business in 1987 and transformed it from a local supplier of coffee beans, tea and spices, to a business with branches in 55 countries, waxes lyrical about the brand makeover. According to Schultz ‘it enhances and respects our heritage and at the same time evolves us to a point where we feel it’s more suitable for the future.’

The ring, apparently, had been something of a strategic constraint — trapping the organisation, represented by the aforementioned enigmatic female, into established ways of doing things. Its disappearance ‘allowed her to come out of the circle’, ready for a wider range of business opportunites than coffee alone, and possibly more acceptable as an idenity to the visual, non-verbal, international culture in which Starbucks operates. The US marketing academic, Philip Kotler, makes a distinction between what he calls ‘utterable’ and ‘non-utterable’ branding. The latter is branding by non-verbal means such as logos, colours, typefaces, even noises (such as the sound your computer makes on starting up). Utterable branding devices, such as company names and advertising slogans, have their place, but non-verbal symbols communicate more quickly, deeply and internationally (avoiding translation issues). Plus, of course, they connect more readily to our emotions and appetites than to our reason. You can see the attraction for marketers.

This is not, by any means, the first time the logo has changed. The three founders of the original company back in 1971 (two ex-teachers and a writer) had literary notions about branding. They thought about naming the company Moby Coffee after Moby Dick, but somehow the idea of coffee and whales did not quite gel so they settled for Starbucks, after the First Mate of the ship in the book. Far from being a ‘third place’ where you could relax with latte and the papers, their vision was to provide connoisseurs with roasted coffee beans, tea and spices to be ground and enjoyed at home. They concocted a round logo in earthy brown proclaiming ‘Starbucks Coffee Tea Spices’. At its centre was a suitably maritime image, a slightly cleaned up version of a 15th century Norse engraving of a double-tailed mermaid or siren. Perhaps I am missing something about her allure, but I’m surprised to have seen in Schultz’ book Pour your heart into it that the idea here was to symbolise the seductive attraction of the coffee. Make mine a skinny latte and hold the whipped cream.

The brown logo did the trick for Starbuck’s relatively quiet business until the arrival of Howard Schultz. He had different ideas about what a coffee shop could offer, and bought out the founders in 1987, stylising the logo to render  the siren more chaste and changing the colour to green to create a contemporary vibe. In 1992 things changed again as the siren was re-sized. Her rather alarming two-tail appendage all but disappeared, and she flashed less flesh but more face — though if you hadn’t been around at the start of the image’s development in the 1970s you might struggle to understand what all these wavy lines were actually part of.

The 2011 version, while condemned by some observers as tantamount to brandicide, makes sense in terms of how Schultz sees the company moving. As it faces increasing competition from other chains, and possibly decreasing sales in the light of the financial squeeze, it needs to leverage its assets. One of the most valuable is the network of outlets it provides for selling stuff and services which can complement its core offering. It has already made steps into publishing and entertainment, it was a pioneer of wifi access, its business has always been about more than premium coffee. I would not be surprised to see it moving into upmarket fast food (a la Pret) and increasing its media offering. But looking at how other major retailers have transformed their businesses through expanding into areas like financial services and non-food items, who knows what the siren may be adorning over the next decade?

I awoke this morning to the 6am news on BBC Radio 4 reporting a £250 million government initiative whereby companies from the food and fitness industries will be shelling out vouchers for free healthy food and activities. Sounds like a good idea though, sadly, there wasn’t much information on how to get hold of said vouchers. Perhaps this will become clear in the fulness of time, so that frugal Marketing Talk readers will be able to fulfil their new year resolutions of daily rations of 5 portions of fruit & veg alongside regular exercise without breaking the bank. It wasn’t clear, either, what the companies (which include heavyweight confectioners such as Nestle and Mars) will get out of it.

I remember the Parliamentary uproar a few years ago when another confectionery-to-food giant, Cadbury, launched a promotion tying the provision of sporting equipment for schools to purchasing its controversially calorific products — so good luck to these enterprising organisations and their £250 million! Comment within the 6am news bulletin included a damning quote from Professor Tim Lang, the food policy guru at City University, who pointed out that food companies spend twice that amount every year advertising their oversalted, sugared and fatty offerings. According to Professor Lang the present initiative is not so much a public healh strategy as a way of protecting corporate food brands by appearing to be socially responsible.

But let us not kid ourselves. There is no way that we will eat more healthily as a nation without involving the food companies (a key industry recently highlighted in a series of BBC documentaries co-produced by the Open University). Social marketers promoting better food choices cannot afford to adopt the kind of moral high ground that will, in time, leave them isolated and ineffective. Principles need to be combined with pragmatism. Unless social marketers try to find common ground with the food industry and seek opportunities for collaboration. however suspiciously at first, they will remain bogged down in public relations wars which will, in time, do nobody any favours.

If we really are as interested in changing attitudes and behaviour as we say we are, then perhaps we social marketers might consider changing our own as a first step.