The Pitch: Starship name matters because we've bonded

By ROB BREE

What do Starship hospital, the war in Iraq, the Sars virus and A2 milk have in common? What can we learn from Wayne Brown, George, Saddam and biological mutations?

Well, these four entities achieved in spades overnight what marketers toil away at for months, if not years, to achieve. We care about them. They matter to us.

We've bonded with the Starship brand on many levels. We have formed a relationship. It matters to us when Mr Brown messes with that relationship.

We see the pain and suffering of the people in Iraq and it matters to us. Our hearts go out to our fellow human beings.

Tell us a killer virus is on its way here from Asia and that matters to us too. It matters because we fear for our own wellbeing and that of our loved ones.

We've now even got a reason to question the milk that comes straight from nature to our daily Weet-Bix. Until five minutes ago we hadn't even heard of beta caseins, now they're the best thing since mobile phones.

If consumers own brands - as Howard Russell suggested last week - it's because those brands matter to us.

It matters to us that Panadol Rapid works twice as fast as regular Panadol. It matters to us that it's Coke not Pepsi in the fridge.

Mattering matters. Look at the big four banks, they don't seem to say things that really matter to me or any of my friends. Why? Why is it that Telecom and Vodafone are able to matter and the power retailers don't matter very much (except when they threaten us with blackouts)?

What is it that successful brands do better? Putting it simply, what matters to us, the customers, matters to them. They've invested the time, resources and energy in getting to know us, their customers. They've explored our world to understand what matters to us.

So how do you make your brands matter more?

* Spend time with your customers. Find out how your category or brand functions as part of the customer's life. If you're in the sportswear business you need to understand the psyche of sport. You need to know the difference between feeling good and looking good, performance and endurance.

* Turn up the relevance of your brand. Having understood the sporting psyche, make sure your brand's values are totally attuned to that psyche. Not the whole psyche, but the aspects that matter - eg, performance or winning or competing or enduring. It's going to be different for different people.

* Make the brand stand out. Take the aspect you've focused on and express it in a positive, engaging, motivating way.

* Keep checking that you're doing what matters to your customers. Comfort, fit, value, styling, quality, strength, durability, speed, complaint handling, retail atmosphere. Are you staying focused on the customer's priorities?

Until recently I thought milk was milk. Now something as obscure as beta casein matters to me - because it could mean the difference between a healthy and an unhealthy heart. It's starting to matter to the milk industry, too. What's just round the corner in your industry? Will it matter?

* Rob Bree is senior account director at Singleton Ogilvy & Mather.

* The Pitch is a forum for those working in advertising, marketing, public relations and communications. We welcome lively and topical 500-word contributions.
Email Simon Hendery.