Huib van Bockel has been running his own consultancy, The Social Brand, only for the last six months. But it is his past life that attracts people towards him. He was the CMO of Red Bull, considered by many as one of the world’s most interesting brands. In a conversation with cat.a.lyst on the sidelines of the first edition of Melt 2015, Bockel says that brands have to transform their thinking now, or else it could be too late.
What does it take to be the CMO of a brand like Red Bull?
My background was I started off my career in Unilever where I learnt the basics of consumer goods working on brands like Lipton Ice Tea. After that I worked on MTV for three years. So I also knew the media part of the business. So when I came to Red Bull this was a good combination.
One of the big challenges was to build the entire media house structure from nowhere.
That’s what all the brands must do right now. That’s one of the things companies struggle with. Red Bull took its time to build that. It’s a whole different skill. So you need to take your time to skill, practise and slowly get better at it. The big companies like Unilever, Coca-Cola want to do that almost overnight.
You have to try out things and get better at it. If you do not do it now, you will never get it right. People will start blocking out ads in the future. They already are in some cases.
Was it easier for a brand like Red Bull to publish content than brands from other categories?
I think it’s possible with every brand. If you start off having a clear vision of what it is that you want to add to a consumer’s life. If you take any category I can name a brand in that category that does a very good job of it.
If you took, say, car battery makers, look at Tesla. It is a great example of creating things that people are proud to own as consumers feel it cares about this planet and wants it to be a better place.
Everyone loves Google because they give you maps, analytics and all this great stuff that you actually enjoy. Dove lets people be themselves. Twenty years ago you would have thought phones are uninteresting things. Now people line up outside stores to get the latest Apple products.
Or take financial services. Where the companies are going wrong is their belief to get as much money from customers as they possibly can. They forget the real reason that they are here — to help people get access to finance or to protect their wealth. It’s a very giving product.
If they connect with their true nature again and give people something they can connect with, it will be a win-win.
Apple gave people a free iTunes even before it launched the iPod. That allowed people a great way to organise music. But when iPod was launched it all connected. For a bank, why can’t it build the most state-of-the-art accounting software and give it away for free? To a bank that is nothing. For customers it will be great.
Is the world moving from “trusted brands” to “exciting and cool”?
I don’t think so. If you think about it customers are loyal to the brand that gives them something. Google gives you products that are relevant. That’s why Bing could not take market share away. The thing about Red Bull is also about giving people stuff that they really enjoy.
What was the fundamental difference of Red Bull from other brands?
It’s about saying things and doing things. Which brand would you like better, the one that says or the one that “does”?
Which friend do you appreciate — the one who does things that are nice or the one who only says things that are nice. What MTV and Red Bull did was that they did things that created a real bond with the brand.
The question I often get is, is it possible with other brands? If you were in a culture that does not encourage this thinking my advice would be to start slow.
You can demonstrate through data that your current way of thinking is not getting through as people are blocking your ads. The second is that by continuing to do so consumers will not trust you.
Then you need to offer them an alternative that also has a lot of data to back that up.
You take a small chunk of your budget and organise a small event and do something that people want to use and see the reaction.