The temperature has gotten steadily colder in Wisconsin. This time of the year, many of us in the Upper Midwest begin to dream about warmer climates, while proclaiming to even our best friends that we wouldn't live anywhere else. As we slide stoically towards another Wisconsin winter, we're reminded again -- though we're too proud to admit it -- that not all seasons are created equal.
So, in the interest of providing a brief mental escape (or a painful reminder), I've pulled an interesting story from my stack of clips. It's from the Aug. 30 edition of The New York Times. Tucked in the real estate section is a fascinating article about 35-year-old developer Alan Becker and his Nizuc resort near Cancun, Mexico, where it is 78 degrees today.
Mr. Becker bought the 28-acre site for his $180-million resort in 2005. Soon after, he began to shop his vision for the resort to a half-dozen upscale hotel chains. But the hotel chains, Mr. Becker told The Times, were thinking more about their own brand identities than what he believed to be the unique attributes of the site, once the Mexican presidential retreat. His efforts failed.
It was then that Mr. Becker engaged a branding and communications firm to focus on building Nizuc's own unique brand. Even before he hired an architect, Mr. Becker hired his communications consultants. Together, they created not just the resort's graphic identify (a brand is much more than just a logo), but its "...soul and the feeling we wanted to create," Mr. Becker told The Times. The brand platform on which Mr. Becker and his team settled for Nizuc, its identity and experience: "Mayan culture brought into the 21st century."
The outcome of their efforts was so successful that he soon struck Mayan gold in places where he couldn't have before. Little other work to develop the resort had been done. But using the brand platform as the cornerstone for all his communications, Mr. Becker was able to enlist a group of the world's best upscale hoteliers, architects and interior designers to help develop it.
So why did Mr. Becker's experience come to top of the pile? What's the point of this climatic taunting? Businesses that get their positioning and the subsequent messaging right first -- and then stick with it -- are almost always more successful than those that don't. Mr. Becker's experience is the most stark example of this principle in action that I've seen in some time. His resort, which existed as a communciations platform before it was anything else, is scheduled to open in 2010.
The principle is all the more important during the current economic and financial crisis. The crisis has made the communications waters muddier than they've ever been; news of the crisis seems to be drowned out only by that from the presidential race. Only one of these will disappear next Wednesday, so get your positioning and messaging right first. Be thoughtful and deliberate, but not plodding. Ensure that your work is informed by the appropriate research.
It will be 78 degrees in Cancun again tomorrow. How's your communications program helping you to get there?
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