Your Path to Becoming a Brand Strategist Might Involve a Camel

BRAND STORY: Introduction Part II

Why successful brand strategists bring an odd mix of data analytics, poetic instincts, and psychic powers to the job.

The famous brand guru, Seth Godin, began his career path with unlikely degrees in computer science and philosophy. Like Godin, I didn’t set out to be a brand strategist either. I’ve been a filmmaker, photographer, author, sailor, whirling dervish. Importantly, I spent two decades in corporate marketing and the agency business. Unlike Godin, my brand strategy chops go back to my mamma’s knee. Here’s my story.

Twenty years ago, Michael Higgins and I ran the creative department at CheckFree Corporation, a financial tech company that became part of Fiserv. I was the Senior Writer.

After we proudly won the Max Award for Georgia’s marketing campaign of the year, we installed the Chihuly-designed glass trophy in the CEO’s office. The next day, in gratitude, CheckFree’s management fired our entire department. The geniuses wanted to clear the deck and bring in an outside agency. In response, Michael and I started Design Coup, a scrappy, young branding agency with CheckFree as our first client. Touché!

These included the woman who invented a “Kippah Clip” to keep skull caps attached during prayer, the dad with seven home-schooled children who created a wall-patch compound made from old paint, plus scores of cheap products to be sold in Dollar General.

Our favorite shoestring startup was the patriotic liquor brand, SpiritsUSA, created by an Aussie-transplant sports bar owner. His love for America was tested when the state of Georgia effectively mandated that he divorce his wife to comply with Georgia’s Prohibition-era laws. It’s against the law in Georgia for the same owner to both distill and serve liquor.

Today, I continue to help empty-nesters, millennials, non-profits, and former corporate folks launch their entrepreneurial dreams.

A knack for brand strategy doesn’t grow on trees. In my case, it came from my mother, Nann Miller. During my college years, I helped her stage PR stunts that made their way into the Guinness Book of World Records. Imagine the messy fun we had emptying tubs of Knudsen Ice Cream with gallons of butterscotch into a portable swimming pool to create the world’s largest sundae. Yes, my mom showed me how to position a brand before the term “top of mind” had been invented.

Lauded as the “PT Barnum of the PR Industry,” Nann Miller built one of the first woman-owned PR firms. Today, she would be grinning in her grave to see how most PR firms are now owned or run by women.

The joke in the family was that my mom was so savvy at positioning a story that she could get a news crew to pull up to any cockamamie event— even your birthday party. She had a psychic sense for the “big idea” — how to dramatize the brand story into a single compelling image that would cut through the noise using the power of contrast: big/little, new/old, rich/poor, and camel/hotel.

Yes, camel/hotel. Here’s the story: When the Israeli Tourist Commission asked Nann to publicize a banquet at the Hyatt Regency Los Angeles, my mom scoffed, “You want me to promote a bunch of people eating? That’s not news!”

The Israelis persisted, so my mom zeroed in on the wacky idea of having a camel check into the hotel.

“That’s crazy!” the Israeli client protested, “There are no camels in Israel!”

“And you… you don’t have a story!” Nann countered, “So, we will have to make one. Camel, hotel — contrast.”

When the news trucks rolled up to the hotel, the crews looked sheepishly at each other, “How did we fall for this?”

Rosie the Camel entered the hotel through the garage and into the freight elevator while the cameras waited in the lobby. My mom paced. “Ready, everyone.”

And then the unthinkable: The doors slid open to reveal an empty elevator.

“Where’s Rosie?” my mom frantically blurted. “The camel’s lost! Somewhere in the hotel!”

The news cameras quickly swung toward Nann as she unwittingly became the focus of the story. The scene further devolved into Marx Brothers when the cops arrived. They issued Nann a citation for filming “livestock” on a city street without a permit. From there, the story grew. The local media, national networks, and the LA Times all picked up the story. Two weeks later, the TV crews returned to follow the saga to the courthouse when the “ship of the desert” made a second appearance to pay her fine.

And that’s how I grew up — always focused on: “What is the BIG idea?”

One day, I would be shooting a radio DJ diving into the world’s largest root beer float for Hires, or filming diamond-clad bikini models stepping out from a Brinks armored truck, or staging the world’s longest ribbon cutting spanning the Long Beach harbor, or recording Zsa Zsa Gabor making an homage to her late husband (number two of nine), Conrad Hilton, to promote the Beverly Hilton Hotel.

One night, as Nann drove home from her office, she stopped her car at a hillside overlooking the Harbor Freeway to marvel at the glowing skyline. From the weed-filled empty lot, Nann saw a mammoth crowd in her mind’s eye — the perfect stunt to publicize her client, the Central City Association of Los Angeles. Three months later, she achieved her vision, staging the world’s largest photo op — a welcome photo for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

A brand position communicates a simple idea to a target audience in a memorable way:

These Brand Story articles will encourage you to stop obsessing about your product or service and focus on your brand. Then you will understand the adage:

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