Question

Topic: Branding

New Branding Strategy Critique For Number1direct

Posted by Anonymous on 4/3/2012 at 3:59 PM ET 250 Points
Our company is currently called Number1Direct. We sell the best brands of appliances, furniture, plumbing, and mattresses. The foundation of our business is Goedeker's Superstore in St. Louis area and has been a family owned and operated store for over 60 years.

We have a deep and lasting history and trust value impact through the branch of our family tree that exists in the local store Goedeker's Superstore. However, most of our business has shifted online. We have two branches of the Goedeker's tree: the older, thicker branch of Goedeker's Superstore in St. Louis, and the newer, greener branch of Number1Direct, the online store.

Originally, the website and the local store were two separate entities. Recently, we have been rethinking our vision of who we want to be and who we need to be. We believe it is in our best interest to bring together Goedeker's and Number1Direct into one entity again, different branches under the same family.

We have redefined our values and attempted to define our name with more meaning and emotion than it currently possesses. Here are our current thoughts and content writing on this:

Our moto/tagline/slogan is intended to define our name, who we are, and what we do:

Goedeker's Number1Direct
Direct the inspiration of your home.

We have nailed down a 5-point values statement which also expands upon the main points with a brief explanation of each value:

Our Family Values
• It’s about YOU
At Number1Direct, it’s not about serving our needs. It’s about the convenience of choosing your shopping experience. It’s about empowering you to direct the changes you desire in your own life. It’s about giving you the tools to enhance the beauty of your experiences in your home and with your family. It’s about creating wellness, health, and comfort in your lifestyle. It’s about discovering what is just right for you.

• It’s about INTEGRITY
Mistakes happen. It’s a fact of life none of us can avoid. It is crucial to be honest and real about how we do business and develop relationships. We strive to follow Jesus Christ’s model of humility, honesty, and generosity. We won’t camouflage our bottom line. We won’t pretend we’re always perfect. We’re realistic and straightforward. Through the example we find in our Father, we will work to serve you best, delivering the most caring, genuine experience that we can. This is not an act.

• It’s about SERVICE
It does no good to offer a product or service if we don’t have the expertise to help you make the best decision in a sea of choices. We strive to be the most knowledgeable and most helpful in our industry, actively finding ways to go the extra mile. Our service makes your time more efficient so you can bring your family together as a whole, healthy unit.

• It’s about QUALITY
Some retailers attempt to build confidence in their products by asking you to spend extra protecting those investments. At Number1Direct, we are certain we offer recognizable quality you can trust. We offer the best brands, the most innovative and useful products, and we throw in extra securities such as free 10 year warranties just to boost your confidence. We have seen a lot in our lifetime as a company, and we are still dedicated to the quality of your experience. Our products will last for many years, and we’ll have your back every step of the journey. We will not skimp. That’s a promise.

• It’s about FAMILY
Goedeker’s Super Store, the foundation of Number1Direct, has been family owned and operated for more than 60 years. We’re a growing family, constantly evolving and expanding in different areas. We understand the needs of a growing and changing family because we are one. As a family, we make it personal. It’s about inviting you to join our ever-growing family. We eagerly pass on our “family discounts” so every member of our family can afford the best comforts in life. We pursue building a relationship with you not just to grow our family, but to help you strengthen yours.

Our vision we intend to embody hinges around family, history, trust, experience, etc. Others have said of our brand feeling things like, "There is Home Depot. Then you have Lowe's. Then you have the big box appliance store across town. However, people choose Goedeker's not necessarily based on price or because they shopped around and landed on Goedeker's as the biggest, flashiest, best store but because you're he neighbor down the street who has always been there. You are trustworthy, you'll be around a long time. You're friendly, your have the personal touch to make people feel right at home in their own homes. You've been in the same business for such a long time that you have the expertise nobody else guarantees."

My questions are:
1. How do we say, yes we are our family values and our history and our personal touch, but we are also modern, clean, organized, professional and moving forward?

2. Does our tagline/slogan accurately define, describe, and promote our vision? What kind of feeling or ideas are we giving at first impression?

3. What about the name "Goedeker's Number1Direct"? Does that pull in the two branches of our family tree in a meaningful way?

4. How does our values statement define us and what does it say about us? Is there anything we haven't said well or anything about us we've missed?

5. What are the objections to how we are presenting ourselves?

6. Is the overall vision we are laying forth positive and capable of achieving the correct intent as far as who we are and what we do?

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RESPONSES

  • Posted on 4/3/2012 at 5:03 PM Moderator
    Nice job on the values and on integrating the name Goedeker's with Number1Direct. Good solid strategic thinking.

    The problem will be communicating the values to your customer base in words/pictures. There's a lot there, and most of your customers will not take the time, or make the effort, to read and digest it all. It's just TMI for them.

    So what you'll have to do is simplify it into a simple, easy-to-understand tagline that addresses the most important element, and deliver the rest through your actions. If you walk your talk, eventually the message(s) will get through.

    As for the tagline "Direct the inspiration of your home," I'd suggest you do a little research about what it means to the target audience. When I read it, I asked myself, "What does it mean to 'direct the inspiration of [my] home?" Those are not the words I use to express my needs, and I'm guessing others will have the same problem. How do you "direct" an inspiration? What does this mean in plain English?

    So you have the right idea(s), but they may not be easily communicated ... and thus they may be a "tree that falls in the forest" and is not heard by anyone.

    You might consider getting some professional help with this branding/positioning project. There are several on this forum who are qualified to do this kind of work, and it's obviously very important that you get it right. The cost of outside help will almost certainly be small when compared with the value.

  • Posted by Jay Hamilton-Roth on 4/3/2012 at 5:24 PM Member
    Perhaps "Everything For Your Home From Our Family" or "The Friendly Family-Owned Home Superstore"?

    You don't necessarily want/need to lead with your vision statement in your marketing. As Michael says, it's how you do what you do, not what you say about what you do.
  • Posted on 4/4/2012 at 3:40 PM Accepted
    Have you had direct interaction with your primary target audience regarding their needs, how they make decisions on where to purchase your kinds of products, what's important to them, etc.?

    There are a few references/phrases in your response that suggest you've fallen prey to inside-out thinking. You may need a few focus groups or other structured interaction with the people you're trying to reach with your rebranding message. It's possible they don't care a rat's you-know-what about your rebranding, or they use different words than you do to express their needs.

    Just a few examples: You write "... seems to be an idea that would be appealing to the mother audience ..." Seems to whom? If you mean "it seems to me" then perhaps you're not really representative of the intended target audience.

    You also write: "We want to be able to say our values ..." It's not about what YOU want. It should be about what your target audience wants. What YOU want doesn't create happy customers. What THEY want does.

    Similarly, you write: "I am interested in incorporating information about our rebranding in our social media strategy and trying to get people interested in, excited about, and discussing these ideas ..." What interests YOU is not relevant. What interests your target audience is what will make the cash register ring.

    And when you say, "I think of the mom guiding her family ..." that's a statement about YOU, not about the mom. Do most moms use the phrase "guiding" when they talk about their role vis-a-vis the family? Is that really how most moms see themselves? Same question about "directing." Is that the word moms use, or is that your attempt to force-fit a word into an arbitrary tagline that you've concocted?

    I'd hate to see you make such an important decision based solely on what YOU think and what YOU want people to care about. That's not what marketing is all about. It's about understanding your customers and satisfying their important needs.

    Maybe we need to revisit your first value statement and walk the talk as we deal with communication: "It's about YOU [the customer]. At Number1Direct, it’s not about serving our needs."
  • Posted on 4/5/2012 at 2:57 AM Accepted
    Bethany,

    In the delivery of your value statement I agree with the above posters, make it shorter. In any business B2B, B2C, etc... customers are like one-night stands, they hit and they quit. BUT, give them something to remember (about your business) and they will come back. Often, we focus too much attention on our value statement, when really we should be concerned if they will like the non-monetary value of our products and our service. You can write value statements all day long, but at the end of the day only one thing remains, the non-monetary value the customer received during the buying process.
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