2009 Value Language Study
- 1. A W HITE PAPER FOR MARKET LEADERS T HE 2 0 0 9 H O U S T O N VALUE LANGUAGE STUDY Brandwave.net Wave your brand.
- 2. © 2010 Brandwave. All rights reserved. What’s So Special About Your Little Corporation? Huh? Brandwave is in the business of communicating value, so it’s not surprising we would launch a search to document the differentiating value language communicated by some of Houston’s major corporations. What is surprising is how few meaningful value promises we actually found.
- 3. In our 2009 year-end Value Language Another 25 companies, or 22%, do so only In this economy, shouldn’t we Study, a visual audit of the web sites of in the most cursory manner, leaving only 113 Houston-based public corporations, 20 firms, or about 18% who make a clear try a little harder? we found that 68 companies, or 60%, value statement on their home pages. make no attempt whatsoever to speak to site visitors from a standpoint of In other words, only 18% made a visible differentiated brand value. effort to express what makes them special. Our methodology was simple: We ZERO indicated there was no value All told, 113 Houston conducted a superficial visual review of language evident at all. ONE indicated some attempt at presenting value, and corporations scored a the primary home pages of each of the companies in the study group and rated TWO represented the presence of clear cumulative total of only 66 them on a scale from 0 to 2. and meaningful value language. points using our 0-1-2 scale. Before you get hung up on the word “superficial,” bear in mind that a superficial review is all most stakeholders do before they move on to something else. And if your differentiating value promise is not obvious at a cursory glance, it doesn’t get through. Period.
- 4. ACR Group 0 DXP Enterprises 0 Lyondell Chemical Co. 0 Service Corp. International 2 Adams Resources & Energy 1 Edge Petroleum Corp. 0 Marathon Oil Corp. 1 Smith International 0 Administaff 2 EGL (CEVA) 0 McDermott International 0 Southern Union Co. 0 Allis-Chalmers Energy 1 Enbridge Energy Partners 0 Mens Wearhouse 2 Southwestern Energy Co. 0 American National 0 Englobal Corp. 2 Meridian Resource Corp. 0 Stage Stores 0 Insurance Enterprise Products 0 MetroCorp Bancshares 2 Sterling Bancshares 0 AmREIT 2 Partners Mexican Restaurants 1 Sterling Construction Co. 0 Anadarko Petroleum Corp. 2 EOG Resources 0 Mitcham Industries 0 Stewart & Stevenson 1 Apache Corp 0 ExpressJet Holdings 1 Services Nabors Industries 1 Atwood Oceanics 0 Flotek Industries 0 Stewart Information 2 Natco Group 1 Services Baker Hughes 0 FMC Technologies 1 National Oilwell Varco 0 Swift Energy Co. 0 Benchmark Electronics 1 Friedman Industries 0 Natural Resource Partners 0 Sysco Corp. 1 BJ Services Co. 1 Frontier Oil Corp. 0 Nevada Gold & Casinos 2 T-3 Energy Services 0 BMC Software 2 Genesis Energy 0 Newfield Exploration 0 Team 0 Boots & Coots 0 Group 1 Automotive 0 International Noble Corp. 0 Teppco Partners 0 GulfMark Offshore 1 Bristow Group 1 Noble Energy 0 Tetra Technologies 0 Halliburton Co. 2 Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. 0 Oceaneering International 0 Transocean 1 Harvest Natural Resources 0 Camden Property Trust 2 Oil States International 0 US Concrete 2 HCC Insurance Holdings 0 Cameron International 1 OYO Geospace Corp. 0 US Physical Therapy 0 Corp. Helix Energy Solutions 0 Group Parker Drilling Co. 0 Ultra Petroleum Corp. 0 Carrizo Oil & Gas 0 Plains All American 1 Houston Exploration Co. 0 Universal Compression 0 CenterPoint Energy 2 Pipeline Holdings Hydril Co. 0 Comsys IT Partners 2 Powell Industries 1 Vaalco Energy 0 ICO 0 ConocoPhillips 1 Pride International 0 Waste Management 2 Imperial Sugar Co. 2 Consolidated Graphics 0 Prosperity Bancshares 0 WCA Waste Corp. 0 Input/Output 0 Cooper Industries 0 Quanex Corp. 1 Weatherford International 2 Kinder Morgan 0 Copano Energy 0 Quanta Services 0 Weingarten Realty 2 Kirby Corp. 0 Investors Cornell Cos. 0 Rick’s Cabaret 1 KMG Chemicals 1 International Westlake Chemical Corp. 0 Diamond Offshore Drilling 2 Landry’s Restaurants 1 Rowan Cos. 0 W-H Energy Services 0 Dril-Quip 0 Luby’s 2 Sanders Morris Harris 1 Group How each of the 113 companies we surveyed compared on our simple scale: 0 = No Discernable Value Language 1 = Minimal Value Language 2 = Effective Value Language
- 5. 68 of the 133 companies we surveyed use no Value Language at all. Instead, they often simply fill in the blanks in a boilerplate that goes something like this: “(Company Name) is a (adjective) provider of (adjective) (product) in the (geographic) (industry segment) market.” In other words, “(Houston Co.) is a (leading) provider of (high-end) (tools) in the (global) (oil and gas) market.” This is not Value Language. It’s pure description, and not very compelling at that.
- 6. We then reviewed a control group of 25 Guess what? In other words, leading brands of the world’s most popular brands, and measured them using the same criteria. Every one of them scored a 2. are good at expressing value. (Who’d have thought?)
- 7. The key to building strong corporate At the heart of every enterprise is some Value Language clearly conveys value, brands is successful expression of the driving vision - some unique value promise presents it from the standpoint of the value that differentiates them. separating it from the competition, which customer, and does so in a way that clearly can be used to create a sustainable differentiates it. Descriptions of features competitive advantage. and benefits do not constitute value language. We think there are two key reasons 1. A tendency to delegate responsibility for 2. The “curse of knowledge.” some companies don’t use effective the brand to people who lack the authority Value Language: to do anything about it. Responsibility for the brand resides with the CEO. Only the CEO can articulate and drive the vision in a way that reaches all the organization’s constituents. But sometimes, the CEO is such an expert on his own company, he doesn’t see that what is clear to him can go right above the heads of his most important constituents, usually his customers.
- 8. To identify areas where value language The scope of the Value Language Assessment depends on the can be improved, and help management focus brand assets in a single direction, size and reach of the organization, but the basic premise remains Brandwave developed a protocol we call the same no matter what: Once management has a clear picture the Value Language Assessment™. of the clarity and consistency with which its core value promise is expressed and delivered, it can begin to control how it is VLA is a thorough analysis of how an organization’s value promise is articulated experienced. through its identity program, marketing materials and corporate communications. CEOs who ignore the value language spoken by their organizations Its purpose is to answer five driving questions: do so at their peril. But with the Value Language Assessment from Brandwave, smart leaders can have a greater impact on the Is the organization actually focused around performance of their brands. a core value promise (you’d be surpirsed how many aren’t)? To learn more about our 2009 Value Language Study, or to Is the promise communicated clearly and schedule a Value Language Assessment in your organization, visit persuasively in a way that differentiates it www.brandwave.net today. from all other promises? Does the visual language support the written narrative? Is it consistently expressed across all touchpoints? Does it resonate with constituents?
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