How giving up many brands in exchange for one created a marketing plan with big impact

• How do libraries have relevance in a world where people prefer speed over accuracy—by a whopping 98 percent?
• How do we counter the threat laid down by Slate that libraries will be extinct in 2019?
• How does one of the top urban libraries continue to stay at the top?
• How do we become top-of-mind with the general public and leverage the library reputation to secure financial support in an enomic downturn?

The answer for all can be found in a marketing plan. The days when marketing was thought to be posters and fliers is over. In today's world, marketing is at the core of every transaction, from checkout and customer interaction to story times and our buildings themselves. A brand is a promise you make to your customer, and a promise that is unified, consistent, and believable can help ensure that the library thrives. At Columbus Metropolitan Library (CML), OH, we developed a robust plan to counter the eroding market share of libraries. Not just a feel good, the plan was a critical business decision to articulate the unmistakable value of libraries. With ten years of flat funding, a struggling economic climate, and a pending levy in 2010, we knew we had to focus our resources to make the greatest impact. We could still be “open to all,” but we couldn't spread our resources to serve all equally. So, we created a plan that declared loud and clear the value of libraries and library staff. Here's how we did it.

Research and assess

All marketing begins with knowing your customers. Not just their demographic profiles but how they behave. We put together a cross-departmental internal team to provide front-line perspectives and studied our customers and staff. Because finding noncardholders is very expensive and because we were just starting out, we focused on current library users and not nonusers. CARDHOLDER DATABASE ANALYSIS: We plotted gender, age, addresses, and zip codes against our service districts and uncovered some surprises, including that an average cardholder is age 27, there is a huge drop-off after age 50, and half of our customers have no children at home. (Considering how full our buildings are with lots of noisy kids, that came as a surprise!) CUSTOMER OBSERVATION STUDY: Remember Paco Underhill in Why We Buy? He hid behind pillars, notepad in hand, and observed how customers behave in stores. We did that. We watched customers from the moment they walked in the door and tracked their behavior. Then, using PRIZM cluster analysis, we segmented customers as follows: POWER USERS:

• The key constituency of the library and make up the majority of circulation.
• Take advantage of the reserve service and are also active in browsing.
• Prevalent at all library types (large and small), check out generally at least six items per visit and visit the library frequently.

BOOKWORMS:

• Tend to check out a large number of books per visit.
• Make up half of the reserve users and appear to be primarily middle-aged females of all economic brackets.
• Do not stay long in the library but make frequent, even daily visits.

MEDIA HOUNDS:

• Check out primarily CDs or DVDs.
• Skew toward younger age groups but have a strong middle-aged base as well.

SOCIALITES:

• Use the library primarily to meet with others.
• Only lightly use books, CDs, DVDs.
• Use the computer (mostly for social or entertainment purposes).
• Arrive late in the afternoon, corresponding with after-school hours.

CUSTOMER SURVEYS: Next we talked to our customers on site and online. With clipboards in hand, we surveyed customers in 16 of our 21 locations over 25 different shifts to capture a representative sample. We collected more than 500 surveys over 11 days. An online survey contained the same questions as the customer intercept survey, plus questions about online services. More than 1300 surveys were completed. Online respondents mirrored the same trends as the intercept surveys. Some of our key findings:

• Age range trended younger than Columbus MSA (Metropolitan Statistical Area)
• Customers were more diverse than the Columbus MSA
• Respondents were even more diverse at younger ages, with only 50 percent of respondents through age 24 listing themselves as Caucasian
• Only the Hispanic population was underrepresented compared with Columbus MSA, meaning the percentage of Hispanics visiting the library is less than in the overall population in Columbus.

STAFF ANALYSIS: We asked our staff their perception of our customers, using the same data points as the customer surveys. We wanted to uncover gaps. And, yes, there were a few; for example, staff thought the average customer age was much older than it is. This information served as background when we got to the point where we thought about service implications.

Strategizing a house brand

After the research, we started to dig deep and define our brand. We pulled together a cross-departmental team and examined why brand is important. Our brand is more than our name or our logo. It's the way we look, act, and speak. Our brand is the essence of our institution. It explains to our customers and our community—whom we now understand better, thanks to our research—what we're all about. When we live up to our brand, everyone we reach out to can connect with our programs and services, and it helps our staff do their jobs better. When an organization lives up to its brand, consumers connect with it. We had to think about what the library is. It's more than a book repository. It's a place to learn and grow. It's an organization devoted to promoting literacy. It's programs and services that benefit individuals and the community. It's helpful people presenting accurate information. And in the age of Google, when information is everywhere and immediately accessible, what is the key differentiator, the value-add that makes the library unique? We could answer that question in our sleep: it's great people. We then attacked our brand strategy. A brand review of CML showed that we had diluted the power of our brand through the “house of brands” approach. Each program or service had its own logo, disconnected from the library's overarching brand. Where an organization falls on a brand architecture continuum is determined by the degree to which its brands are separated strategically—and, ultimately, in the consumer's mind. The maximum differentiation occurs in the “house of brands”; in the “branded house” there is little or no differentiation. CML's existing branding was decidedly “house of brands,” and that was a problem. With limited resources we couldn't make that many brands powerful enough to capture mind share, and the overall brand lacked power and impact. Next we built a messaging map. Through an animated session with our team, and using our customer research as a foundation, we created a map to build a hierarchy of core messages in terms of attributes, what we offer, our values, and the benefit to our customers. This map led us to our brand essence, what we promise to deliver to our customers: opportunity through knowledge. This essence isn't a campaign slogan; in fact, this statement has never been expressed outside CML's walls. We staked out our brand personality, which defines the library's voice and image or look and feel. We asked our team to identify traits that distill our brand personality. Keywords floated to the top: smart, accessible, trusted, alive, approachable, human. We returned to one word over and over: alive. We are vital, noisy, ever-changing, and full of activity. This is our core brand personality. And, finally, we conducted a More Like/Less Like exercise to help inspire us visually and verbally because each of these brands has strong associations that are “more like” or “less like” where our brand should go.

Getting an identity

Once we understood our focus, with our brand personality and essence clear, our next challenge was to bring this thinking to life in a visual way. We started with our logo. Designed in the 1970s, it was conservative, education-centric, and down-market: a difficult-to-design-around square box, in serious need of get-rid-of-the-box thinking! As we strove to capture the evolution of our brand thinking, we tried to represent creativity (too confusing), library as third place (couldn't resonate with our customers), and anything other than books. And, yet, when it came down to it, reflecting on the OCLC Perceptions Study that showed that library customers overwhelmingly associate us with books, we wondered why we were running away from that core identity. Our team agreed unanimously—a giant relief to everyone, given that a logo is a very visible and personal thing. The book-based logo creates a quick connection with the viewer. Its movement and energy convey that the library is more than might be expected. When we unveiled this logo to staff two things happened. First, they heaved a huge sigh of relief that we hadn't done something totally wacky. Next, they saw all kinds of additional meaning in the mark: movement, sails, energy—and a representation of what it means to be alive. We selected a palette that signals vitality and a crisp, modern approach. We banded the colors to represent the multiplicity of the library. Just as colors overlap and create something new, so a library experience delivers unexpected surprises. We integrated an up-market, contemporary typeface to ensure relevance. Our house font, Gotham, is a sans serif type, and as such shifts away from the classic textbook or newspaper look. This keeps the library looking fresh and in line with current marketing trends that favor a sans serif look. Then we took a very bold step. If our people are the library's greatest assets, then they had to become front and center. Just as our staff are stepping out in front of the reference desks proactively to help customers, we needed them to step out in front and be our brand. To do this, we invested some resources (less than you might think) to capture high-quality photos of our staff. We first chose staff whom our experience told us would photograph especially well because they have an interesting and unexpected look. We sought out cross-representation of age, gender, race, and branch location. Some people did say no, as is their right. For those who said yes, since they trusted us with their image, we promised that every photo would be smashing.

Make it happen every day

Since this rebranding, every touchpoint has been updated to apply the brand across the entire “house” of the library: program materials, web sites, signage, and name tags, among others. Because we are a public institution with limited dollars, we have made the easy changes first and over time tackled the more complicated ones. Initially, some staff resisted the loss of some of their freedom of expression. However, as we gain success with customers and staff understand the value of a unified brand presence, they understand that this is about the future survival of our library and less about personal initiative. Perhaps the most important items—library cards—were completely overhauled. Not only are they colorful and vibrant, but we added kids cards and allowed customers to choose among eight designs. By giving customers that choice, they actively participate in defining the library for themselves. We quickly found that adults liked the kids cards as well. Our signals on the street—our signs—were so quiet that it was easy to drive right past. We redesigned them to be the signal flares of our new brand in 3-D glory. As the new signs have been installed, word from staff and customers alike has been that they bring a burst of energy to the neighborhood—again, representing the brand as alive. Bookmobiles are rolling billboards. As such we retired our dated mascot and converted the buses to library cards on wheels. With the old house of brands model, we had made it hard for our customers to recognize the library when the buses looked so unlike the rest of the library. We took the branding beyond the library and its services, as well, to the Friends of the Library and the Foundation, with which CML enjoys productive affinities. Previously, the three had individual logos, with no visual connection. Good luck figuring out how they related to one another. But because we had done such thorough up-front work in the research and strategy, we could present a persuasive argument that all three groups needed to take up permanent residence in the branded house.

How we know it works

Remember those questions at the beginning of this article? We've made progress on the answers. IMPACT: As part of the overhaul, we completely redesigned CML's web sites. Front and center every day are photos of real staff, recommending books. This has yielded phenomenal results. The Association of Marketing and Communication Professionals awarded CML a Gold Hermes International Creative Award for outstanding design (out of 4000 entries, thank you very much!), and this first: more people now visit our web site than walk through our doors, exponentially expanding the mission and impact of the library. CUSTOMER REACTION: People connect with people, so it is no surprise that our staff photos have resonated with our public. A quick story to demonstrate their power: before Keith Hanson, a youth services librarian, visited a rough inner-city school he sent “Meet Mr. Keith” fliers, which the school plastered all over the place. He had never been to the school, but as he walked the halls for the first time, swarms of kids came up to him, shouting, “I know you! You're Mr. Keith from the library!” STAFF BUY-IN: Staff overwhelmingly embraced the new brand and appreciated that they are its foundation. While a few may resist the conformity that a branded house requires, we have worked hard to provide a variety of tools to choose from, such as 35 templates. FINANCIAL SUCCESS: We leveraged our marketing plan with donors and have seen impressive results. As our library and foundation integrated the message, we were able to match Andrew Carnegie's $200,000 donation eight times, landing $2 million into our endowment. As our message to funders has become laser focused—concentrating on the role of the library and our young minds customer segment—our fundraising success has risen to new levels. Our executive director, Patrick Losinski, hears from donor prospects that they see and feel a momentum within the library that they hadn't understood before and that for the first time they are gaining a real sense of the library story. That leads to cash on the barrelhead. This solid foundation of our marketing plan touches everything we do. The research from the plan evolved into our strategic and tactical plans. The brand essence influenced all aspects of our development plan. And as we complete our 20/20 Vision Plan for Services and Facilities forecasting the next 20 years, every piece of our marketing plan has been spearheading everything we do.

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Author Information

Alison Circle, author of LJ's Bubble Room blog, is Manager of Marketing at Columbus Metropolitan Library (CML), OH. Kerry Bierman is Director of Community Relations and Development at CML