Greetings from the University of New Hampshire! The end of summer is arriving as my father brought us peaches from his tree. We made a fabulous cobbler last night with them. With the end of summer, I turn now to preparing for my fall courses. I am looking forward to this class because I was the faculty adviser to most of them during their freshman year, and now they are juniors. I only arrived on campus one semester before them, so in some sense we have been learning about the UNH at the same time. And it was for them that I started this newsletter.
This week I released my interview with Sean Tracey, the founder of a full service marketing firm specializing in healthcare clients, and so this week's theme is around marketing and branding - personal and organizational branding. This is a fascinating and important topic. I hope you enjoy the links.
Read
What: from Eater, What Brands Are Actually Behind Trader Joe’s Snacks? by Vince Dixon
https://www.eater.com/2017/8/9/16099028/trader-joes-products
Why: I love Trader Joe's. I don't know anyone who doesn't love Trader Joe's. What's to not like about Two Buck Chuck and a box of Joe-Joe's? It's like an unpretentious Whole Foods. And that is the power of their brand - good quality, great prices, interesting selection. What's fascinating about the store is almost everything is store brand - the branding is at the store level. Brands convey all sorts of information - particularly quality. A brand is a guarantee because the firm behind the brand is putting its reputation on the line. Most grocery stores have store brands, but they are a small part of their business. Mostly grocery stores sell branded goods from other companies. If you are disappointed with Campbell's soup, you buy a different brand. Campbell's suffers, but you don't hold the grocery store accountable. With a store brand, it's the store that's putting its reputation on the line - you don't even know the firm who made the product. That's what Trader Joe's does by selling almost all of their products under the Trader Joe's brand - it puts its reputation on the line. It's an interesting choice. To some extent, health care is moving in the Trader Joe's direction, and probably should move faster. Whereas branding used to be more focused at the individual provider level, branding is moving up to the organization level. Physicians are blending into a team, and the brand is moving up to the team level (practice, hospital), and away from the individual components - physician, hospital.
Watch
This week I released my interview with Sean Tracey, the founder of a full service marketing firm specializing in healthcare clients, and so this week's theme is around marketing and branding - personal and organizational branding. This is a fascinating and important topic. I hope you enjoy the links.
Read
What: from Eater, What Brands Are Actually Behind Trader Joe’s Snacks? by Vince Dixon
https://www.eater.com/2017/8/9/16099028/trader-joes-products
Why: I love Trader Joe's. I don't know anyone who doesn't love Trader Joe's. What's to not like about Two Buck Chuck and a box of Joe-Joe's? It's like an unpretentious Whole Foods. And that is the power of their brand - good quality, great prices, interesting selection. What's fascinating about the store is almost everything is store brand - the branding is at the store level. Brands convey all sorts of information - particularly quality. A brand is a guarantee because the firm behind the brand is putting its reputation on the line. Most grocery stores have store brands, but they are a small part of their business. Mostly grocery stores sell branded goods from other companies. If you are disappointed with Campbell's soup, you buy a different brand. Campbell's suffers, but you don't hold the grocery store accountable. With a store brand, it's the store that's putting its reputation on the line - you don't even know the firm who made the product. That's what Trader Joe's does by selling almost all of their products under the Trader Joe's brand - it puts its reputation on the line. It's an interesting choice. To some extent, health care is moving in the Trader Joe's direction, and probably should move faster. Whereas branding used to be more focused at the individual provider level, branding is moving up to the organization level. Physicians are blending into a team, and the brand is moving up to the team level (practice, hospital), and away from the individual components - physician, hospital.
Watch
What: TED, Susan Colantuono, The Career Advice You Probably Didn't Get
http://www.ted.com/talks/susan_colantuono_the_career_advice_you_probably_didn_t_get
Why: This is sort of an anti-branding message. Anti-branding in the sense that I've read a lot about personal brands and cultivating personal brands. The argument Colantuono puts forward is a bit of "stick to your knitting". This is a good message for men and women. Business, strategic, and financial acumen - "That's a given". Apparently conventional advice to women does not focus on that - instead personal branding. I find that odd, since I (hope I) would never give that advice. Personal branding matters at the margins - you have to be damn good at what you do. Everything else is fluff.
Listen
What: Health Leader Forge interview with Sean Tracey, Founder, CEO, and Creative Director of Sean Tracey Associates
http://healthleaderforge.blogspot.com/2017/08/sean-tracey-founder-ceo-and-creative.html
Why: This interview was a bit outside my norm, but Sean introduced himself after he became aware of my interview with Sheila Woolley, the CNO at WDH. Sean had done work for WDH in the past, and so we talked and ultimately he agreed to be a guest on the podcast. This was a really interesting interview, getting an inside view into the world of a marketing firm that specializes in providing services to healthcare organizations. There were several takeaways from this interview that make it worth listening to. First, Sean is a really interesting guy - a modern renaissance man with interests in philosophy, music, art - and all of those things influence his business. Second, we get into the idea of branding (this week's theme) and some of the unique aspects of branding in high trust industries like healthcare and financial services. And third, we talk about the unique management structures of the marketing and advertising world - the "Hollywood Model" as Sean refers to it - where teams of freelancers come together on a project basis to produce most of the products. I think that is absolutely fascinating.
Why: This is sort of an anti-branding message. Anti-branding in the sense that I've read a lot about personal brands and cultivating personal brands. The argument Colantuono puts forward is a bit of "stick to your knitting". This is a good message for men and women. Business, strategic, and financial acumen - "That's a given". Apparently conventional advice to women does not focus on that - instead personal branding. I find that odd, since I (hope I) would never give that advice. Personal branding matters at the margins - you have to be damn good at what you do. Everything else is fluff.
Listen
What: Health Leader Forge interview with Sean Tracey, Founder, CEO, and Creative Director of Sean Tracey Associates
http://healthleaderforge.blogspot.com/2017/08/sean-tracey-founder-ceo-and-creative.html
Why: This interview was a bit outside my norm, but Sean introduced himself after he became aware of my interview with Sheila Woolley, the CNO at WDH. Sean had done work for WDH in the past, and so we talked and ultimately he agreed to be a guest on the podcast. This was a really interesting interview, getting an inside view into the world of a marketing firm that specializes in providing services to healthcare organizations. There were several takeaways from this interview that make it worth listening to. First, Sean is a really interesting guy - a modern renaissance man with interests in philosophy, music, art - and all of those things influence his business. Second, we get into the idea of branding (this week's theme) and some of the unique aspects of branding in high trust industries like healthcare and financial services. And third, we talk about the unique management structures of the marketing and advertising world - the "Hollywood Model" as Sean refers to it - where teams of freelancers come together on a project basis to produce most of the products. I think that is absolutely fascinating.
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I'd love to hear what you think of these suggestions, and I'd love to get suggestions from you. Feel free to drop me a line by e-mail, or you can tweet to me at @bonicatalent .
