Lina Ko

Lina Ko is one of North America's pre-eminent marketing communications professionals, specializing in brand positioning and marketing. She is a partner of NATIONAL Public Relations Inc., Canada's leading public relations firm.

She has counseled senior management and marketing teams of leading North American and international companies on building brand equity for some of the world's leading consumer, lifestyle, technology and healthcare brands. She has over 20 years of international experience in brand positioning, product launches, special events, consumer promotions and buzz marketing for clients in North America, Europe, and Asia.

Her experience in brand building and positioning spans three international markets: Hong Kong, the United States and Canada. From luxury brands such as Montblanc, Shangri-La, Mercedes-Benz, Hermès and Chanel; to food and beverage brands including Campbell's, Coca-Cola, Kraft, Unilever, Twin Fin wines, Piper-Heidsieck champagne, Hennessy and Remy Martin cognacs; to travel and leisure brands such as American Express, Cathay Pacific Airways, The Peninsula Group; to retailers such as American Eagle Outfitters, Wal-Mart, Holt Renfrew, Amazon.ca and Yahoo! shopping, Lina has helped build brand power for a wide array of international clients and made a difference to their business.

Lina is the author of www.boomerwatch.ca and oversees the Baby Boomer Marketing Division of NATIONAL which helps clients make better business decisions through a deeper understanding of the boomer demographic. The firm brings a wealth of experience and knowledge about the 40+ market through its work in consumer healthcare, anti-aging, food, retail, real estate, financial services, long-term care and estate planning. Services offered include primary research, market analysis, product seeding, advocacy group relations, media relations and direct-to-consumer events.

Lina is a Past President of the American Marketing Association, Toronto Chapter (TAMA). She also won a Gold Quill Award given by the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC). Lina was on the Program Committee of the Canadian Marketing Association's 2005 National Convention and Trade Show and a Senior Judge of its 2004 "CMA Awards." She recently delivered a keynote speech on "Globalization of China Brands" in Huizhou, China, at the Annual Famous Brands of China Conference.

The Success of Marketing A Weekly Publication

The New York Times recently lauded the success of The Economist in marketing to the sophisticated. The Brits have always been perceived as 'cool', but a British weekly publication has been a marketing success even in the U.S.A.? That's almost unheard of.

Bankers read it in first-class seats; hipsters read it on the subway on their way to work; boomers and Gen-Xers both love it. The newsweekly, a bible of global affairs for those who want to aspire to be worldly, did not become a success overnight. It took 25 years of clever advertising that appeal to the status-seeking reader to help the magazine get there.

I've always been a big fan and a subscriber for the past three years – not for the status, per se, but for its global and big-picture editorial content. I've been telling my friends that not a week will pass in my life unless I've read both The Economist and Hello Canada - the former for my intellectual curiosity and the latter for my pop culture update! I like The Economist's formal, proper English writing style and the choice of its macro subject matters.

Since the magazine first began printing a North American edition in early 1981, its circulation has increased more than tenfold. When The Economist began reporting figures to the Audit Bureau of Circulations in 1982, it printed about 80,000 copies and sold fewer than 8,300 on the newsstand each week. As of its last accounting, for the first half of 2010, the magazine sold an average of about 52,000 on the newsstand each week and had a total weekly circulation of just under 823,000. When almost every other weekly publication has been suffering a decline in circulation numbers and is struggling for survivial, The Economist's success is impressive.

As an avid e-book reader, I don't understand why The Economist is not available on Amazon's Kindle. The Kindle has been touted as a single-purpose, electronic device designed for avid readers, and that's why there are no photos on the device. Ironicially, The Economist also focuses on the writing and the reporting, with very few photos in the entire publication. With the increasing popularity of e-books, It should be just a matter of time before these two find a match for each other!

Lina Ko

Is Brand Identity a Brain Science?

The Globe and Mail reported that according to a new research published during the week of June 21, there is compelling evidence that some people are predisposed to take on characteristics embodied by brands, while others are harder nuts to crack. In “Got to Get You Into My Life: Do Brand Personalities Rub Off on Consumers?”, two University of Minnesota researchers said that there’s a tradition in consumer research that identifies the fact that people use brands as signals of who they are. “In looking at the body of literature, one thing that fascinated us was no one had actually done strong experimental work to figure out whether or not, after people use some consumer brands such as Harley Davidson, are they really successful in feeling better about themselves,” said Deborah Roedder John, the chair of the marketing department at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management and a co-author of the paper.

It is the opinion of another academic, the University of Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, that people think of themselves in one of two contrasting ways. One school of thought believes personal qualities are fixed and cannot be changed through direct effort to improve, learn or grow. As a result, they look for opportunities to signal their positive qualities to both themselves and others. “They sort of believe that they can’t do it on their own. They have to have something, such as brand names, to help them signal that they are a better person,” said Professor John. The second school of thought believes people can enhance themselves only through learning and hard work. Signalling their positive qualities to others or themselves by touting a brand has little or no effect on their sense of self.

According to Professor John, there’s already a belief among marketers and advertisers that brands have this type of feel-good power, and that consumers respond positively to that. “But there are other people – although they like these brands and they pick them and they use them – it doesn’t quite have that power over them.”

Professor John’s research also suggests that brands might actually play a therapeutic role in people’s lives. In one of the studies described in the Journal of Consumer Research paper to be published in early 2011, undergraduate students were given a math quiz. Regardless of their actual answers, each was told they had performed poorly. But students who were given an MIT-branded pen to use for 10 minutes fully recovered from the psychological slight, while others did not. “What we found interesting from that study was, brands really allowed people to feel more positive about themselves. It was sort of an empowering thing that they got from using that particular brand,” said Professor John.

For a change, maybe marketers should not always be portrayed as ‘evil’, figuring out ways to subconsciously make people do things that may be bad for them, or make people buy things they should not be buying?

Boom Time for Boomer Models

I read with interest in The New York Times that a customer service agent working at Lowe’s home improvement store in Garden City, New York, works two jobs – operating a forklift one day and then working as a model for the Ford agency another day. She appeared on the Today show five times. She also appeared as a savvy business investor on a TV commercial for Edward Jones; as a warm, nurturing mom of a seven-year-old for Hallmark; and as a middle-aged woman getting welcome relief from rheumatoid arthritis.

The 53-year-old boomer model would love to take on the modeling job full-time, but decided to hold on to her US$35,000-a-year Lowe’s job. Her new career is a reflection of changes both in the modeling world and in the demographics of consumers being targeted. According to Paulette Ellison, who oversees Ford’s classic division, which is primarily female models over 40, the greying baby-boomer population still has enormous buying power. That demographic needs to be portrayed in a different way. It was not until two years ago that the business demands justified the opening of a new classic division for Ford. The modeling agency had 12 classic models in New York; by the mid-1990s, 18. That had grown to 40 by 2008, and today there are 54. This is also a sign that in spite of the recession, boomers continue to have more buying power than most.

According to some of the more experienced and successful classic models at the agency, the correct description of this attitudinal change is pro-aging instead of anti-aging. The idea is women can look beautiful without looking younger. Many of the modeling moves used with younger models are no longer appropriate for the older models. When they were younger, the models were the product of the photographer. Now as they mature, the photographer is looking for a confident pose, and the way you stand knowing full well who you really are. When asked how classic models handle modelling in middle age, these models say they just have to figure this out on their own as they go since they are the first generation going through this. Their mothers didn’t have these opportunities when they were aging. This is exactly what baby boomers are all about – a new generation with no precedents!

Boomers and Seniors Continue to Bloom In Entertainment

Once again, a lot of ‘boomer’ and even ‘senior’ entertainers are establishing new milestones in their careers. Betty White appeared on Larry King Live last month and said, “I’m the luckiest old broad that ever drew a breath.” According to The Globe and Mail, pop culture has always been unpredictable, and no one knows this better than Betty White, who’s been a part of it since the 1940s. It’s amazing to see how a woman born in 1922 has become the hottest star of 2010.

White has become omnipresent since appearing with Sandra Bullock in a summer comedy The Proposal. Her sweet old appearance with a mean and saucy attitude landed her roles in Ugly Better and 30 Rock. She also took over water coolers this winter with an instantly iconic Snickers ad that appeared during the Superbowl telecast and a shower with Hugh Jackman to relaunch Jay Leno’s Tonight Show. These coincided with a January lifetime achievement award from the Screen Actors Guild and a successful half-million-strong Facebook campaign that got her invited as host of Saturday Night Live on May 8. News has it that she’ll launch a new sitcom Hot in Cleveland alongside three other women. This is all happening to a woman who won her first of six Emmys back in 1952!

Ted Danson, who’s a leading-edge baby boomer at 63, has also been enjoying a late-career revival on Curb Your Enthusiasm and Bored to Death, and starred in the critically acclaimed mini-series Damages with Glenn Close (of the same age).

Kim Cattrall, a younger boomer aged 53, is about to launch the sequel to the movie Sex and The City in May amidst a lot of glamour and publicity. She’s also enjoying a rave review of her performance in Noel Coward’s Private Lives currently playing in London’s West End. All this success and fame came to a woman who was previously only known as the Canadian actress who used to date Pierre Trudeau.

Maybe marketers and Hollywood have finally understood the role of mature actors instead of wanting young actors to attract young audiences?

Lina Ko

Boomers Go Online to Stay In Touch

As I’ve posted on this blog about two years ago, social networking sites are not just for young people. According to a new report on this subject by eMarketer, baby boomers check out social media sites as they’ve always been good communicators, as proven by their presence at sit-ins, protests and demonstrations in the 1960s.

About 47 percent of online boomers maintain a profile on at least one social network, according to several sources. Their contacts include family, friends and co-workers of all ages. Burst Media reported that 47.5 percent of online boomer respondents had a social network profile in June 2009. Last September, Deloitte found 46 percent of boomer respondents said they maintained a social network profile. Both comScore and Anderson Analytics data show that Facebook is the favourite social network for boomers.

And the numbers keep growing. While millennials’ use of social profile remained fairly steady, boomers’ social network presence has actually grown since a 2007 survey, when only 30 percent said they maintained a profile on a social network. Boomers are expanding their networking efforts to include both online and offline connections. They will be interested in online marketing messages that help them build on their connections and make new friends.