Personal Training 2.0

As my post-graduation summer months come to an end and the beginning of the football season begins, I find myself trying to kick those much-enjoyed summer beers into touch and attempting to get myself fit for 'pre-season'. Very professional. Unlike my well-intentioned run on Monday morning.

It started off so well - iPod on full charge, strapping on ankles to hold various ligaments in place, suitable pair of shoes on and probably unsuitable clothing on in my vain attempts to impress the Surrey yummy mummies while on their daily jog. I confess to not remembering much of the next 23 minutes due to the excruciating pain my gut was enduring. However, I do remember resorting to exaggerated heavy breathing in order to seek pity from the said ladies of Surrey, realising after two minutes that my anticipated air of coolness and fitness would appear more like an air of constipation due to the inevitable 'stitch'. Through the sweat coating my eyes, I also remember performing a casual market research session on 4 women between the ages of 30 and 45. I don't profess to be Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock but I did note a couple of things. Each runner was:

1) kitted up as if they were preparing for 2012.
2) well groomed. Running's not just about getting fit.
3) wearing something on their wrist, be it a heart monitor, a copper band or an aid for listening to their power tunes.
4) listening to music through white bud earphones. No real surprise there, then.

These people take their running seriously and it is because of them that Nike+ arrived on the scene in 2006. Nike+ originally worked with your iPod to track your performance and help you improve your fitness and running times. Since, it has slowly developed alongside advancements in modern technology to provide an electronic personal training service + (shorthand is suitable here, no?) an online running community.

This month, Adidas has released MiCoach, its arguably belated repost to Nike+. On the surface, it looks as if it will be more appealing to Joe Bloggs, the athlete. While Nike+ merely implies that its service can be used by any sports person, the MiCoach brand is built on its provision of training plans for many different sports.

One thing, however, is glaringly missing from both products - a service that offers support and advice for its users while they are injured. Nike+'s recent online update moved the focus away from just supporting your individual training sessions to providing support for your entire fitness programme. Furthermore, nowadays the Nike+ website is more of a community - a Facebook for runners. The problem is that when a user gets injured, there is little rehabilitative help on offer. So, while they recover from this potentially disheartening spell of injury, they are effectively excluded from a community that they have been a part of.

MiCoach seems not to lean towards the community aspect of 'Personal Training 2.0'. However, this does not excuse it from providing injury support. In its current advertising campaign, MiCoach demonstrates that it is providing a service fit for professionals. In a product that is endorsed by athletes such as Jessica Ennis, Andy Murray and Jonny Wilkinson, all of whom have suffered from serious injuries in the past, it seems odd, if not wrong, that MiCoach doesn't offer support while you're enduring some down-time.

So, in this battle to be the leader in Personal Training 2.0, Nike, Adidas and any future competitor should look at how they can provide a more complete service and study how they can include injury support - a service that might help you 'be faster to the fast break, be faster to the ball'. MiCoach Rebound, or Nike+ BounceBack, perhaps?

Microsoft iPod

The above was created a few years ago by the Microsoft packaging team to (internally) highlight the differences in approach the two companies take to packaging.

In Apple's case an uncluttered image of the product along with the Apple logo and a black and white image communicates everything the shopper needs to know - this product is simple to use, stylish, leading edge, innovative and aspirational.

Brand Microsoft doesn't have this luxury and therefore requires the presence of other 'endorsements' to encourage consumers to pick up its products in store.

Regional vs. local branding

A look at the global brand consultancy, Interbrand's, 2008 study on Latin America's most valuable brands shows up a few interesting points. For one, not a single brand from Argentina, the region's second largest country by land area, features in the study (an omission that is explained on p. 28). Furthermore, out of the twenty countries in Latin America, only five feature in the paper - Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Colombia and Perú. Out of these five, the first three dominate, with Brazil on top with 15 brands, followed by Mexico's 14 and Chile's 13. Considering that Brazil is so often feted as one of the fastest growing economies in the world, the inability of some of its other brands to beat off its country's neighbours may come as surprising, or unsurprising, depending on your view of Brazil's chances of fulfilling its economic promise. The numbers also highlight Mexico and Chile's potential.

The thing that struck me most about Interbrand's study was that only two brands that operate throughout the Latin American region feature. Superficially, this seems a minute figure seeing as the majority of Latin America is united by the fact that it speaks Spanish (Brazil is a major exception to this), which must surely aid intra-regional brand communications. However, a unique aspect of Latin America is that its nations are associated by their desire to dissociate - their will to be independent, be it from the Spanish during the 18th and 19th centuries, the Americans ever since or the IMF since the beginning of the new millennium. This independent mindset hampers brands' attempts to expand throughout the region as they are met by a band of proudly local revolters. So, how can expanding brands win them over? A look at the two success stories may help.



Tigo came in at number 30 of Interbrand's Top 50. A telecommunications company, it took over the national brands of the neighbouring countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras in 2004, while replacing the old national brands of Paraguay, Bolivia and Colombia over the following two years. Looking at the brand's website for each country, there is a startling similarity in layout between each of them - certainly vital in the three Central American countries where inter-migration is frequent. I say 'vital' because this helps to maintain a solid and clear identity that its users can trust wherever they may need to use the network (trust is an integral part of a relationship between a telecommunications brand and its customer as seen in a previous post) . While consistent in its messaging and products in each country, it also maintains a local stance by using language and grammar specific to each country.

The other regional brand that appeared in the study is Claro, another telecommunications company though somewhat larger than Tigo - reflected in its position of 5th in the league table. Claro operates in El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Panama, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Brazil, Chile, Peru and Ecuador (as well as some Caribbean islands) and so it, like Tigo, requires consistent messaging throughout the region while maintaining a national identity in each country. Its verbal messaging centres on the use of the Spanish word 'claro', meaning 'clear' or 'clearly'. By employing these meanings in its advertising, Claro conveys its simplicity of use and customer service (in my personal experience of using Claro). For example, in Argentina the slogan "Es simple. Es Claro" (It's simple, it's clear / Claro) has been used. In El Salvador and Guatemala, "Hablamos Claro" (We speak clearly / Claro) has been another slogan. "Claro. Que sí" and "Claro que tienes más" or its variations have been used in almost all of the brand's messaging at some time to provide this transparent and clear identity that Claro conveys throughout Latin America. Similar to Tigo, though, are its local touches be it through grammatical inflections or through overt reference to the country in which it operates. One extended example is "Cubrimos tus momentos, Cubrimos tus lugares, Cubrimos tu Nación, Cubrimos tu Diversion, Cubrimos El Salvador" (We cover your moments, your places, your nation, your fun, we cover El Salvador). Not only is this communication very national, it is also extremely personal through the use of 'your' and words such as 'moments' and 'fun' (my translation). This helps to settle the more patriotic of Claro's users.

While the consistency of intra-regional brand messaging is not as important in Europe or Asia due to the many language barriers, in Latin America it is standard. What is essential in this region is the blend of this consistent messaging with more national and local messaging to help convey a brand's transparent, clear and relevant identity. Once that is achieved, the world (or rather, the region) is your oyster, as Claro state: "Si hablas Claro, Claro que tienes más".