Most of us are awed by the marathon runners who push past their physical and mental limits (sometimes frighteningly so!) and move on to do something impressive. But it’s much harder (and less socially acceptable) to do that kind of scratching and clawing within an organization. Great brands, excellent products, impressive results — all of these things are done by people without excuses, individuals who have ignored the limits inside themselves, or those imposed by others. Why not bring a little of that limitless thinking to our everyday work?

With apologies and a tip of the hat to Kevin Costner for his wonderful Crash Davis speech in “Bull Durham”:

“Well, I believe in the Big Idea, the pitch, the hands, the power of a well-crafted phrase, the value of sketching, exquisite craft, late nights, that the work of David Carson belongs in the 1990s. I believe Paul Rand acted alone. I believe there ought to be a constitutional amendment outlawing advertising as branding and horizontal scaling of typography. I believe in the group critique, eyeball-searing visuals, under-promising and over-delivering, and I believe in long-term, ambitious, deep, professional dreams that will last the next three decades.”

While this season’s Lexus December to Remember holiday campaign is being panned, ridiculed, and parodied, we took notice on the astonishing long-term brand ramifications of it all.

Team One, a unit of Saatchi & Saatchi, created the commercials, in which an unsuspecting husband or wife is confronted by the Lexus December to Remember jingle (you’d know it if you heard it), while their partner watches and waits in gleeful anticipation. The delivery method varies from spot to spot (a rock-band themed video game, a crystal music box, and oddly, elevator music), but the hook remains the same — slowly, the gift receiver recognizes the music (as does the viewer) and realizes they’re about to receive a $30–80,000 present. The big reveal is the couple walking towards a brand new Lexus, as always, topped with a big, red bow.

The messy societal issues of such a campaign aside, the ads are a brilliant example of how short-term brand coherence can pay off in the long run, in surprising and unexpected ways.

Lexus first began using the jingle, a shortened version of songwriter Steve Kujala’s “Family and Friends,” for the local Los Angeles market in 1999, taking it, and December to Remember, national in 2001. Year after year, come November, Team One and Lexus returned to the jingle, and now, 13 years later, it’s built up massive amounts of brand equity.

13 years is an eternity in the advertising world, and most jingles — even those supporting entire global brands — don’t have a shelf life half that long. Here we have a single seasonal campaign whose theme music has become so recognizable, that it itself can act as a playful hook supporting an entire campaign, almost singlehandedly.

It’s these kind of results that show why brand equity is so important, and why sticking to your branding year after year can yield unexpected — and invaluable — results. No amount of money could have bought Lexus that kind of consumer recognition in a year, or even two. In branding, just like cooking, time itself is an essential component that can’t be replaced.

So what do you think? Are there other seasonal campaign jingles that can hold a candle to Lexus’ December to Remember? Let us know by leaving your thoughts in the comments below.

Some people think strategy in design isn’t sexy, but that’s just wrong. You have to know how to see the beauty in purposeful design choices and methods. Great aesthetics without strategic underpinnings are like frosting on a meatloaf. Strategy isn’t sexy like the tipsy girl who flirts with you at the bar. Strategy is the sexy you bring home to meet your Mom.

Probably one of the most underrated assets in co-workers, employees, and people in general is assertiveness. Not to be confused with aggressiveness, assertive workers strike first, asking “How will I do that?” or “Why shouldn’t I?” They are the people who expect to get that prospect meeting, those who introduce themselves to the famous speaker, and those who live by the adage, “It’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission.”

They take action, make things happen, and don’t wait to be told to go for it. Within an organization, this personal makeup is golden, and often makes up for other areas where someone is less talented. Is assertiveness on your radar?

Everyone likes to make progress, but what does that look like? Doing things as they pop up, and making quick, iterative changes can sometimes be more soul-satisfying and profitable than putting all the eggs into one basket of “overhaul.” Sometimes the team needs to take small steps forward, doing things that are simple to do, in the name of incremental, forward motion. Momentum and inertia are as true in business as they are in physics. So, point out the small victories and the tiny landmarks on your way to the major initiatives. Both are needed.

Halloween is a hoot — let’s just get that out of the way. But for a seemingly-superficial holiday (dress up and get candy/get drunk), there’s quite a bit going on behind the scenes culturally. And for those of us in the branding world, that’s even more intriguing than the sweets (though less delicious).

This Halloween, we’ve noted the increasing trend for Trick-or-Treaters and Halloween partygoers to forego the traditional fun and/or scary character costumes, and don brand-specific consumer product attire for their once-a-year holiday getups. More and more Xbox consoles, Hershey Bars, Facebook pages, iPhones, and Schlitz beer bottles are sprouting arms and legs each year.

Picking a costume is a fun and personal decision, and with no lack of choices, what does it say about our society when someone shimmies into a specific representation of a branded product? What’s behind this shift away from mummy and princesses towards McDonald’s fries and walking iPads?

Here are a few reasons we think are worth highlighting:

Consumer Products Are A Shared Cultural Currency
As entertainment markets have fragmented into dozens of sub-genres, film and TV references are naturally more obscure than they used to be. So, if a Halloween party-goer is looking for recognition, attending a party in a DIY Aquafresh tube outfit will probably be received better than a meticulously-created-yet-little-known Star Trek character costume.

Better and More Thoughtful Branding
Over the past decade, consumer products have been branded in more distinctive and clever ways, and we’ve wholeheartedly accepted these items into our daily lives with gusto, building ever more robust emotional (and subconscious) attachments to such products as electronics, cleaning supplies, sports clothing, food and beverages, and countless others.

People Are Seeking Comfort and Familiarity
Culturally speaking, it’s often been suggested that uncertain economic times draw the public away from film dramas, and towards escapist comedies and fantasies. With the global markets still tenuous, to an anxious public, horror costumes like witches and Wolf Men may seem less desirable than a walking Coca-Cola can.

Halloween Now Aims At Adults
Marketers have succeeded in pushing Halloween as an adult holiday, and the results have been predictable. After all, it’s adults who buy all the candy and decorations, and it’s adults who purchase the costumes, and it’s adults who use most consumer products. The more grown-ups involved in Halloween, the more their fingerprints will appear on its various aspects.

So that’s the landscape, but how does a brand get in on this action?

Producing a licensed costume seems like an obvious choice. Though branded Halloween digs are becoming increasingly common, an organization rushing to market with a branded getup may be missing the point. It’s not the availability of a costume that’s going to entice people to wear it — it’s their feelings towards the brand in the first place. The stronger and more personal connection we foster towards individual products, the more likely we are to see those products as extensions of ourselves. And with a strong enough bond, we’ll create the costume ourselves, as the thousands of homemade iPod costumes from a few years ago demonstrate.

Branded Halloween costumes aren’t a tool in which to build your brand, they’re an end result of strong brand fundamentals in the first place. The connections people make with their brands and those products happen in the dark recesses of the brain, but they’re not random — they’re based on a few, essential practices that any great brand manager holds in the back of her mind:

Make a Great Product
Whatever opinions you hold about Apple as an organization, the design of their products is second-to-none. Consumers often pay a premium for the design, but the resulting bond that ensues is a powerful force that even today many other manufacturers have failed to realize. It’s not just the devices, though — Apple customer service routinely ranks high in surveys, which further imprints the company’s value and and friendliness amongst their customers.

Have a Consistent Visual Identity
Facebook page costumes have flourished over the past few years, in a way that we never quite saw with MySpace, even at the height of its popularity. Facebook’s consistent color scheme and standard visual look allow it to be recognizable from a distance, with the quickest of glances (A blue and white page with a sidebar, and bam — you’re a Facebook page). A MySpace costume, on the other hand, would not be nearly as identifiable, as they all looked so different. You want your costume to be recognizable.

Be Strong in Your Brand Message
Twenty years ago, bottled water barely existed. Today, it’s a multi-billion dollar industry and people are dressing their kids up in as Fuji water bottles for Halloween. This is a direct result of two decades of singular messaging: Bottled water is the freshest, cleanest, safest water you can buy. Despite this being demonstrably false, the powerful and consistent message has cemented itself in the public psyche, and the results speak for themselves.

Halloween only comes around once a year (as of this writing, anyway), and there’s no lack of costume choices. Those consumer brands that have made the leap from shelf to costume have accomplished something incredible. But it’s not so much the result of fickle consumer choices, as it is the byproduct of strong and consistent brand platforms, visuals, and messaging. With those in place, there’s no telling what people will be wearing come Halloween.

And that’s half the fun.

Like a plot twist gone astray, the streaming film company, Netflix, has once again befuddled customers by reversing course with a recent brand announcement. Weeks ago, Netflix announced its intention to divide its streaming and physical mail business units into two separate entities, while simultaneously apologizing for recent price hikes. This effort was intended to kick off the renamed DVD mail service, christening it Qwikster. Apparently, public outcry and common sense won the day, as Netflix backtracked and rejiggered its plans.

This on-again, off-again game of brand Twister has damaged the Netflix name and its brand cache. While we can only guess at the business reasons that motivated these decisions, it’s plain to see how Netflix shot itself in the foot from a brand perspective.

In some ways, the rationale behind Netflix’s merry-go-round of christening, defending, and retreating from its plans doesn’t matter. Brand identities are tightly bound up in what people think and feel about a particular brand, and most everyday customers won’t ever get to know a company’s reasoning for an initiative. They shouldn’t have to — brand decisions are made in the present, where they affect, challenge, and reflect on an organization — for better or for worse.

We think it’s a useful and instructive exercise to rewind the film, so to speak, and walk through some of the reasons why Netflix’s actions are the equivalent of a disaster movie, or maybe just brand mistakes, seen in high definition.

Brand Equity Squandered
Netflix painstakingly built and earned its reputation as a forward-thinking, powerful content provider, employing a Long Tail strategy to re-envision the movie rental industry. The future-forward vision of delivering films and television to users initially focused on using direct mail as the vehicle for providing films quickly. Fast delivery, responsive customer service, and a super-optimized supply system were all strong brand attributes, and crucial to its growth. Coupled with the company’s commitment to developing better and better recommendation algorithms, all of these factors drove Netflix’s popularity and to a place as the leader in its sector. Cute little red envelopes became synonymous with fast service and the delight and surprise of receiving your next film in the mail. The website experience of Netflix was helpful, friendly, and user focused.

But changes have taken hold in the industry, with corporations moving towards streaming models of delivery, and while Netflix did it first (and arguably, best), it mis-managed the evolution of its brand. This Qwikster debacle grew out of this shift away from Netflix’s original model, and that, coupled with an earlier price hike, started pushing away many of the company’s loyal customers and fans. In surprisingly short order, Netflix began squandering many of the good feelings and past positive experiences previously associated with its brand, as users began to feel excluded and alienated from the formerly warm embrace of Netflix.

Business-friendly, User Hostile
The move to focus more on streaming users makes sense, and that change is a wise one for the company. But the initial concept of the Qwikster rollout was primarily built around the needs of the business, and not users. From a user experience perspective, it seems foolish and nonsensical for a single company to force current users to navigate two distinct websites, handle user accounts separately, and degrade the user experience by providing no integration between the related sites. These are not the actions of a company focused on its customer base, and it made many of the Netflix DVD/Blu-Ray subscribers feel like second-class citizens.

Better to Retreat Than Stand Your Ground
But we have to cut Netflix a little slack. Every brand has missteps. Remember the Apple Newton? No one is immune from screw ups, and the best and most popular brands get to make their mistakes right in the spotlight. So, a brand has to make a decision — to retrench, and fix the problems, or stand their ground and defend the decision. But we know what happened to other brands who’ve gone down this path. New Coke? Tropicana rebranding? The Gap logo? You can circle the wagons, but eventually consumer-facing brands need to kneel before their customers and offer the mea culpa. The above brands survived after all the hoopla, and the name of the game is moving forward after a mistake.

But Who Drives This Train?
Of course, this seems to suggest a dangerous precedent. How willing are companies and organizations to hold the line when a seemingly unpopular decision promises to lead to better places tomorrow? Good PR can’t always serve as the indicator for whether a decision is correct or not. Often, the issue is not the actual decision itself, but how it is communicated to the target audiences and public at large. But even if communication is pitch-perfect and completely on-brand, bad things still happen to good brands. Sometimes a temporary black eye is the cost of visionary leadership.

Still Wondering
All that being said, Netflix’s handling of the scenario was odd — with strange communications, then an out-of-the-blue reversal. The company’s delivery was odd, which caused many to speculate that this rebranding was setting up its mail delivery component to be spun off completely, in anticipating of selling it off to another entity. Perhaps Netflix wanted to distance itself from soon-to-be-obsolete technology, maintaining its technology-forward brand image. Or possibly, the company wanted to jettison the extra baggage of hard costs and labor of mail service, as it seeks to become the premier content partner for streaming devices and online.

In the end, we don’t know. But we do know that Netflix could have done a few things to avoid these pitfalls. Here are a few brief thoughts that might serve as a good reminder:

Keep users first. There is always a fine line between decisions that make good business sense, and those that are good for users. Sometimes sacrifices have to be made. But when in doubt, the more profitable decisions (in the long term) will always be for the good of customers.

It’s all about tone. How an organization communicates hard truths (like a price hike) is almost as important as the content of the actual message. Honesty, sincerity, and a clear message about why a decision will eventually benefit an audience will go much further than a strange, pseudo-apology. Directness, transparency, and consistency are the keys.

Don’t underestimate the value of a good name. Netflix almost threw away millions of dollars of brand equity by renaming part of their service. Forget the fact that the name was poorly-conceived (I still can’t spell it correctly!). Any change was a poor one, if it wasn’t going to utilize the goodwill, recognition, and singular awareness of a little red DVD envelope. When your organization spends years, millions of dollars in advertising, and the hard work of building a brand people can trust, renaming must be done with the most sober of mind, if it needs to be done at all.

You will never be able to create or provide something that’s better than the organization you’re working for. It doesn’t matter how brilliant your branding or how excellent the strategy is, the end results will only be as good as the company itself. Paul Rand probably said it better: “[A logo] derives its meaning and usefulness from the quality of that which it symbolizes. If a company is second rate, the logo will eventually be perceived as second rate.” If you can live within those confines, your best bet is to dive in and help make change alongside your client partners. If you believe it’s too hard to live under that ceiling, you’ll need to find better clients.

Great work is hugely important, because it sets you apart, it gets results, maybe even wins awards. But how do you get there? If behind your successful outcomes lurks the wreckage of strained relationships, frustration, abused vendors, and shaking heads, is it worth it? You don’t want people describing your work with a caveat of “Yes, but…” People will remember the great work and results you do, but their most vivid memories will be how you treated people and went about your business — behind the curtain. That’s why it’s so crucial to reach your goals the right way.