Clay Timon - Retired Landor CEO - CU Marketing Presentation

Today in marketing class, Advertising and Promotion, Clay Timon (the retired CEO of Landor) visited as a guest speaker. Clay is an amazing individual to say the least! I was overwhelmed by the number and caliber of clients he had worked with during his time at Landor. Clay got his undergrad at the University of Colorado and it was great to have him back speaking to new students such as myself.

Okay, what is Landor? According to their website: "Landor Associates is the world's most accomplished and internationally recognized branding and design consultancy. Offering a multidisciplinary range of brand strategy, design, naming, interactive and research services, we help our clients worldwide create, renew and strengthen their brand power." Basically, they work with the CEO or director of a company to move towards a new public image and corporate philosophy. During the class presentation, Clay stressed the importance of what he called "the four critical building blocks of a brand" one of which was differentiation. He explained that you can tell when a brand is about to die because it is no longer differentiated. Landor is a company designed to help these "dying brands" get back on track, or help an already successful company change directions and achieve the vision and differentiation they need to stay competitive. Good examples of companies that lack this critical differentiation and are slowly disappearing include Greyhound, Oldsmobile and TWA. A few companies that are taking the initiative to reinvent themselves include FedEx, bp Beyond Petroleum and LG Life is Good.

The four critical building blocks of a brand

1. differentiation - without this you will have no business or brand.
2. relevance - how many people is this brand relevant for?
3. esteem - emotional like for a brand, customers will describe themselves as "your customer" such as Coke drinkers or BMW drivers.
4. knowledge - people feel so comfortable they begin to talk about why they chose you.

Speaking of Oldsmobile as an example of a brand that needs a change, the GM parent company was an example given to us as a brand that could also use some work. When asked by a Leeds CU student in class "if you could choose one company to develop an image for, who would it be?" Clay responded "the United States of America... Although that would be suicide, maybe GM" He went on to describe that the US image has been used and abused terribly over the years and that it would be "suicidal" and "a real challenge to get right." Most of the companies that Clay had been hired to work with before he retired from Landor approached him for help, nearly 85%, when dealing with the USA however he would be working with a CEO "the President" who doesn't understand the brand or where it needs to go and an approval hierarchy "Congress" that would reject the process and adapt slowly to change, if at all. I often wonder if a change like this is necessary for the image of the US? I suppose the idea would be to improve relations with the rest of the world so they would "buy" into our products and programs and see us in a better light. Many US citizens would welcome such a change but I can certainly relate to working with the government on business as being "suicidal" as Clay had implied. Back to GM, Since America would be nearly impossible GM was Clay's second choice. He suggested at one point that it may not be necessary for GM to exist at all saying, "what brand are they?" and following up his remarks with "I like a challenge." Clay is certainly ambitious and although I don't know exactly how old he is, he is in great physical shape and his mind is running at full capacity on fresh relevant issues.

While at Landor Clay traveled around the world working with different companies. At one point in 1979 he got to work directly with the Chinese government and ultimately assess their ability to do do business with the US. Upon returning to America he did an interview for an article in the Wall Street Journal saying that "NO" China is not ready for marketing, we should not market our products to them. The idea was that until there is more than one choice of pens or clothing to buy, there is no need for marketing. Well, over the decade that followed his Wall Street interview China exploded in terms of business and Clay was proven wrong. He thinks of that experience as "one of the few times" he has been wrong.

Moving from past to present time companies but keeping our focus near China, Clay spoke about his experiences working with the Korean company LG. I have been exposed to LG a lot recently with some of my friends doing group projects focusing on their products. I have also begun to seeing LG products making an appearance in Best Buy stores and through online retailers. The reality is, LG has always been around but until recently they have never sold their products under the LG name. LG started out in the 1800's as a family owned chemical business. Since that time it has expanded into many industries including electronics. The L and G originally stood for Lucky and Goldstar which were two branches of the parent company, each focusing on different products; chemicals and electronics. LG had traditionally focused their product design process on building high quality products at low prices. Eventually they their focus from just quality at low prices to include customer needs and desires. This all happened one day when the chairman got a company washing machine that chewed up his wife's clothes. He returned the machine, thinking it was defective, but the replacement had the same problems and it just didn't meet his needs. At this point the Chairman had spoken with the product manager but nothing had been done to fix the process so he approached the employees at the very bottom on the assembly lines to get their feedback. This sort of interaction is very rare in Chinese hierarchical society and it served as a starting point for a new way of driving a company. This new philosophy of every employee actually being a part of the overall brand is at the core of what Landor does to help companies. Today, with the help of Landor LG has been redefined to stand for "Life is Good." The new logo for LG is a tiny face which represents the importance of the people it now focuses on. With a new logo and image LG has gained the confidence it needs to identify as its own brand. LG logos are popping up everywhere! Airports have billboards and pushcarts with the logo. Cell phones are starting to display the logo, and new high end flat screen LCDs are also sporting the new brand identity. A complete overview of Landor's work with LG can be found on the official Landor website at: http://www.landor.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=cPortfolio.getCase&caseid=837

I will be doing another post about Clay Timon's work with bp seperately from this article. As I stated before, there was a lot covered in class and it was quite inspiring to learn from a University of Colorado alumni who has done so many amazing things throughout his career. I am especially thankful for the insights and inspiration gained through today's lecture on business and marketing, both domestic and international.

Thanks Clay