Patricia McQuillan

Patricia McQuillan founded Brand Matters in 2000 based on a career of innovative brand management including RBC, TD Waterhouse, Kraft General Foods and Tandem Consulting.

Brand Matters is a leading brand consulting firm which delivers brand strategy solutions successfully connecting business to brand. Brand Matters’ strategic approach is grounded in market research and branding best practices. Clients include Leaders of innovative organizations including Air Miles Reward Program, Canada Life, Canadian Diabetes Association and Siemens Canada to name a few.

Patricia’s academic qualifications include an MBA and Economics Degree from Queen's University. During her corporate career she served as VP Marketing, RBC Dominion Securities where she led the Royal Bank of Canada Wealth Management re-brand. Prior to this, she held the position of VP Marketing, TD Waterhouse where she directed the marketing launch of the first on-line brokerage in Canada. Earlier in her career, she led successive business turnarounds over a 6-year period as a Senior Brand Manager at Kraft General Foods.

Today, she continues to participate as a thought leader as an owner of one of Canada’s leading brand consulting firms. She is not only an active member of the Canadian Marketing Association’s Branding & Strategic Planning Council but also serves as a Director on two Boards: the American Marketing Association and the MS Society of Canada, Toronto Chapter.

Professional Associations: Re-positioning to meet Members Needs

Just as companies are struggling to grow their customer base, professional Associations are trying to grow theirs (by attracting and retaining members).

The battle for membership is becoming increasingly fierce for Associations and their associated offerings as companies are tightening budgets and demanding increased ROI from all aspects of marketing spending. As such, many Associations are re-positioning their offering to more directly impact their members’ bottom line (through re-branding the Association profession with the end goal of increasing demand for members’ services).

In a recent survey, the four main draws for members of Association membership were identified as: (1) Professional Development, (2) Access to Information/Knowledge, (3) Networking, and (4) Advocacy. But Associations are asking themselves, are these more traditional benefits/offerings sufficient to grow membership? Members must feel that their immediate needs are being met (advocacy, networking, industry news, etc.); however, they must also believe that their Association has the capacity to help their bottom line in the long-term. As a result, we have found that Associations are expanding their offering to include building their Associations’ profession brand. Associations are assuming a support role, ensuring that their members have the resources (information/knowledge, marketing materials, and training) to deliver the new profession brand.

For example, the Appraisal Institute of Canada recently re-branded the ‘appraiser profession’ with the goal of enhancing public perception – thus giving members the opportunity to expand their service offering should the opportunity arise in the long-term. They re-branded the profession from ‘the foremost authority at estimating market value of Canadian real estate’ to ‘accredited members who are qualified to deliver analytical advice and professional opinions across a wide spectrum of services’. Another example is the demand-generating initiative recently launched for the Certified General Accountants profession brand.

Does anyone have another recent example of a really good professional Association branding initiative?

Giving ‘Brand’ the Time of Day in Recessionary Economic Times

Much has been publicized recently on effective recessionary marketing – and rightfully so. Although there are conflicting opinions around the merits of marketing investment (or spending – depending on who you ask), industry leaders agree that all companies/brands want to emerge from this recession in a stronger competitive position.

The question facing us all is how. With ‘brand’ building getting a cold shoulder in these challenging economic times, below we discuss efficient brand innovation opportunities and the dangers (as well as alternatives) to price-cutting.

The recession will give organizations an opportunity to innovate and gain competitive advantage.
Marketers agree: marketing return on investment (MROI) is especially critical in today’s recessionary economic times. Knowing this, the question becomes what is the optimal mix of short and long-term marketing initiatives to maximize MROI?

Recessionary times or not, customer-focused organizations drive decision making with consumer need/insight. Once market insights are mined, strategies can be developed and put in-place delivering value for customers. Although this is the ideal marketing process, shrinking budgets and manpower to execute these initiatives is forcing many marketing professionals to delay long-term branding initiatives.

Recessionary economic times give companies the opportunity to innovate and try new programs. For example, Virgin Mobile mined customer insights around the recession and built a ‘screw you recession’ campaign that not only connects, but engages consumers by having them share day-to-day money saving tips

It is interesting to note how many companies are taking this opportunity to build customer interaction and connection through dialogue about innovation and economic challenges.

Price-cutting in recessionary economic times can have disastrous effects on brand equity.
In-line with marketers needs to deliver short-term business results, an immediate option for marketers is to reduce price to boost short-term revenues and reduce inventories. Although this looks good on the balance sheet, the long-term impact of price-cutting can be detrimental to years of brand equity building investment.

Starbucks recently added packs of instant coffee to its menu of choices, for $2.95 consumers can enjoy three cups of instant Starbucks coffee (~$1 a cup) a far cry from the $1.60 that can be charged for a cup of drip.

Starbucks has positioned itself as being the finest purveyor of coffee in the world, although this lower price point may drive new traffic in the short-term, it may be detriment to their brand with long-term customers – customers that will drive profitability once we come out of the recession.

In a recent Strategy Magazine article, Ken Wong, Associate Professor of business and marketing strategy at Queen’s University, states that although price is important, companies can find other ways to offer customers additional value by increasing their ‘quality’ of offering. For example, offering better financing for vehicles (just as GE financed refrigerator purchases in the Great Depression) or providing free gas (both money saving offerings) to car buyers will boost customer ‘benefit’, thus enhancing the value proposition

Does anyone have any other examples of marketing tactics, either value adding or detrimental to the brand?

Iconic Brands – Will They Be Salvaged During a Recession and Will the Consumer be Duped?

I can’t help but wonder about the future effect on branded customer experience with the recent recessionary push to salvage well-known consumer brands. Are we moving back to the days where brands only stood for a name and logo? Or is this a new era in affirmation of the equity and intrinsic value of well-known brands?

A recent example is provided with the salvage sale of the bankrupt household retailer brand Linens ‘N Things. This brand name is being purchased following bankruptcy by liquidators Hilco and Gordon Brothers for $1million U.S with the rational:
“ There is significant brand value in the name and there is the potential to leverage and grow it.”

The plan is to make a profit by licensing out the Linens ‘N Things brand to other retailers however what is the long-term sustainability of the brand without a mechanism to proactively manage and deliver a consistent customer experience?

This may be the beginning of a trend toward brand denigration. Let’s see what happens. Are there any other examples that you have recently encountered?

Talent branding and multi-generational employees

With four unique generational segments in the workforce and increasing competition for talent, companies must develop attractive internal brands to attract and retain employees – both Gen Y’s at a junior level and experienced Baby Boomers at a senior level.

Although Baby Boomers and Gen Y’s differ in terms of what work benefits they value most, through our research and consulting practise, we have found that their work enjoyment is ultimately tied to how well an employer engenders the following three feelings in their employees:

1. Employees trust who they work for (employee – management relationship)
2. Have pride in what they do (employee – job/company relationship/ CSR programs)
3. Enjoy the people they work with (employee – co-worker relationship)

Companies that are striving to be a top employer must find ways to engender this trust, pride, and enjoyable work culture in their workplace.

Although the internal brand gets shaped and lived in all day-to-day activities, companies must provide a platform from which it is lived (bring the internal brand to life). The employment experience platform created could include company wide communication guidelines, updated health benefits, and work-life balance initiatives. It is within employment areas such as these where companies can improve employees work life; however the value proposition differs between generational segments.

Bottom line, all employees value the three aspects listed above but companies must develop the platform and foster a culture that addresses unique generational needs – health and well-being for Baby Boomers, and Career Development for Gen Y’s.

I look forward to your comments on this perspective.

Taking a 'Dose Of Your Own Medicine'

I often advise our clients that annual customer and employee research is especially important in the business-to-business sector. This summer, my firm finally undertook employee and customer research with a complete review of our brand positioning
http://www.brand-matters.com/Capabilities/index.php. This led to a fine-tuning of our brand strategy, added support for our tagline and a complete re-design of our look and feel – which we are in the midst of completing with a re-launch planned for November.

It was finally time to 'take a dose of your own medicine' and gain input to refresh the brand – check out the
before and after. It has been difficult being the client in this process, and although not too surprising, it was interesting to hear about our out-of-date brand image. Working with a team of identity experts (with whom we often partner), we were able to make traction quickly despite my personal resistance to change as the founder and owner of the firm.

I have learnt a lot through the process and really appreciate the insights which my team put forward, not to mention the time that our clients willingly offered during the research process.