Convenience Matters Intro (00:06):
[Music] You’re listening to Convenience Matters, brought to you by NACS. Whether it’s for food, fuel, drinks or snacks, about half of the U.S. population shops at a convenience store every day. We’ll talk about what we see at stores and what the future may hold for our industry.

Ernie Harker (00:23):
Who are you? Who are they? What do they stand for? Well, the first time I saw our guest speak, he burst onto the stage to the song “Uptown Funk” by Bruno Mars, wearing a backpack and exuding an amazing amount of energy. If that is an amazing personal branding, I don’t know what it is. So today we’re going to talk about inspiring you to market the heck out of anything, including yourself, your business, or anything else you want.

Carolyn Schnare (00:48):
Welcome to Convenience Matters, I’m Carolyn Schnare with NACS.

Britt Brewer (00:51):
Hi, I’m Britt {Brewer} also with NACS.

Carolyn Schnare (00:53):
Well, as I mentioned, we’re going to talk a little bit about branding, a little about marketing and who better to do that for us than someone a lot of us know who is Ernie Harker, the Brand Igniter of Ernburn Branding and the author of “Your Brand Sucks.” So, welcome Ernie.

Ernie Harker (01:11):
Thank you guys. Thanks. It’s great to be here.

Carolyn Schnare (01:15):
I just love saying that, so that’s why I gave it a little extra emphasis. Your brand sucks or maybe your brand is so great. So, um, I guess that’s where we’re going to start a little bit. Um, Ernburn Branding which is your company and I know you’re a consultant, but tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into this and why we invited you on the show, which is a really fun place to start.

Ernie Harker (01:38):
That sounds great. Well, I’ve been a branding guy for about 15 years, but I didn’t start as a branding guy, I started as an illustrator. I went to school to be an illustrator. And my first jobs were like doing storyboards and comprehensive illustrations for advertising. And I’ve worked for a great ad company. Two years later, I broke off and started doing my own creative production, that creative production led into more branded, elements like, and we do websites. We would do logo design. We would do, um, at that time, interactive DVDs or interactive CD ROMs were really cool. Like you’d buy a music album on CD. This totally dates me. I know most people are like, what’s a CD, right? So you’d buy a CD and you could actually have interactive videos and music and interviews and stuff like that on the DVDs or CDs.

Ernie Harker (02:39):
And, so we were doing a lot of design elements. Uh, I would do illustrations for, like magazine ads and stuff like that. And so basically I was doing all these elements for brands, and I was only seeing little glimpses of them at a time until I started working for a couple of different organizations. One of which was Maverik. Uh, this was back in 2001. And I started seeing that there’s all these different touchpoints that companies and organizations tried to create to persuade people to change the way they behave or the way they think. And I noticed that the really good brands were doing that, doing this in a way where every touchpoint is built on the others. So the radio commercials built on the TV commercials and they built on the print ad. They built on the, you know, the internet ads.

Ernie Harker (03:40):
Um, and so all these similar touchpoints created a, a whole, a holistic view or vision of the brand. And so I got all this experience doing those types of things. I thought I need to be a little more thoughtful and deliberate about working with an organization on their brand. So I understand all their pieces instead of just one little keyhole view. And, I think with, with Maverik -which is how most of the people NACS know me – with Maverik, we started building an adventurous brand. And what that means is a brand that’s centered on adventure. It means we borrow a lot of adventurous type elements, and that means visual elements and verbal elements, words like trail and peak and summit and adventure, right? We also use images like mountains and streams and mountain biking and hiking and climbing all those visual representations of adventure too. And when you use them consistently enough, with the tone of Maverik’s tone was like independence and excitement you to use them in that tone over and over and over again, and incorporate those visual elements into your store design and stuff. You start to see a very visceral brand that is comprehensive instead of, you know, um, a flash in the pan or a gimmick to get attention. Uh, and I think that’s what the difference is between branding and like a good brand and a bad brand.

Ernie Harker (05:25):
That’s perfect. So as a marketer – I do marketing for NACS, I’m on the marketing team – and what you’re describing is a cohesive multichannel marketing campaign, right? I mean, is that, is that the key, when I think about, you know, your brand sucks and you’ve got this, you know, you go and you’re a, a speaker and you’re motivational and you have this incredible platform. Is, is that the key, when you think about, you know, in a nutshell, how does a company do that? You know, it kind of sounds simple when you’re like, well, you just take the radio and you just take a commercial and you take your emails and you kinda just, it all work together by using similar imagery and you kind of find your path, um, is that hard to do? How do you know?

Ernie Harker (06:05):
I think most people find it very hard to do. And there’s, and there’s the reason they haven’t predefined the personality and image of their brand. Like they don’t know what the soul of their brand is, and if they don’t know the soul of their brand, they can’t, curate like an artist or a gallery would curate paintings and stuff around a theme. Brands have to curate the verbal and visual language around what makes them special. What makes them different, the heart of their brand. And if they don’t know who they are, what they do is they start doing like gimmicky things. Um, they do things that create attention or, or sales or promotions or things like that. And those things they build on each other and they just become, you know, um, unidentified, you’re just part of the sea of sameness in the world.

Ernie Harker (07:00):
It’s not just knowing the soul of your brand. It’s knowing your customers, right? Understanding their experience. Where do you want your customer to feel the second they walk into your store? What adventure do you want them to go on? Uh, what, where do you want them to look? How do you want them to experience your space and what you offer and your service? So, yeah, you have got to know yourself and you got to know them, right.

Ernie Harker (07:26):
That’s right. That’s right. And here’s the thing that when I consult with, with brands, um, the most important part of the brand needs to needs to come from within the hearts of the owners and operators, because they are the ones that have to sustain and promote it. Um, I’ve talked with organizations where they go, well, we, we just want to find out what our customer wants. What do our customers want in our brand? Well, we can do a bunch of interviews, do a bunch of surveys and find out that the customer wants, by the way, they want clean, fast and friendly. Surprise! They all want clean, fast and friendly in the convenience industry. Right. And they, they, they’re less concerned about- fast, and fast again, and make it transaction-less, you know, just walk in, grab your stuff and go, it’s kinda what they want.

Ernie Harker (08:19):
Um, and kind of like stay out of my way, get, uh, let the transaction be self-driven. And so the more you follow those prompts, the like, well then what do I add? That’s different. What experience do I create? That’s different if I’ve taken myself or the company, even the, the, um, at Maverik, we called them Adventure Guides, but this is the front service representative. If you take them out of the mix and you’ve, you’ve stripped away any kind of visual or, you know, visual personality from the, uh, the experience and you’ve given them fast, friendly and clean, what do you got?

Carolyn Schnare (09:03):
I mean, I think if, if your logo had a turtle on it and you’re in the convenience industry, and it’s like, you know, I don’t know, holding like co like a bag of coins or something. I feel as though that right there is the imagery that like, you know, a convenience retailer in today’s space wouldn’t want to project because you’re like, wow, I’ve got to pay in cash and it’s slow. No, thanks. Um, but that makes it, that’s like a pitfall right there. I mean, maybe the owner loves turtles or, you know, maybe you live next to it or your position next to a turtle sanctuary. And therefore it’s perfectly understandable. And therefore you’re knowing your audience, but I mean, there’s stuff like that, that you just shouldn’t do. Is have you ever seen any pitfalls that, that really is not a good idea and I’m looking at imagery, but I mean, I’m sure there’s some other things besides what you’ve said earlier, um, that, that many retailers, but other companies in general should avoid.

Ernie Harker (09:56):
I think you bring up a great example. Um, in my market, there’s a dental company that makes, I don’t know, fake teeth, you know, they’re a, it’s a, they do smile…um, what do you call it? Smile makeovers. Hmm. Okay. A smile makeover. And they have billboards. The company is called Stubs Dental.

Britt Brewer (10:22):
Oh, no!

Ernie Harker (10:26):
Because you’re going “okay…am I going to get stubby teeth?” Because am I going to get, there’s no appeal, but this is I’m. I imagine this is the name of the company, the name of the founder, right? Mr. Stubs, Dr. Stubs and it’s Stubs Dental. And I think, man, he, he probably has associated Stubs with his, his last name so much so that he forgot that there’s another meaning behind it. And that may, that meaning may be disadvantageous to his market because when I hear of Stubs Dental, that kind of scares me a little bit.

Britt Brewer (11:04):
Right. So, great example, any, thank you. Um, the other side of that coin, who’s doing all of this. Well, you know, who in the market are you seeing? And it could be, you know, any industry, but, you know, specifically, if you have an example that is in the convenience industry who is doing this well cohesive multi-channel marketing campaigns that really make, they know the soul of their brand and they know their customers.

Ernie Harker (11:26):
That is a good, good question. And the hard part to answer that question is it’s the same people that are doing awesome. And you guys already know them, you know, it’s like, they’re the poster children of like awesome brands. And so rather than kind of, pat them on the back once again, I’d like to kind of explore, kind of take it into a different, uh, point of view, Cheetos. Cheetos. Okay. Cheetos has an awesome brand right now. And here’s why here’s some of the things they do. I love Cheetos. Oh, who doesn’t, if you don’t like Cheetos, there’s something wrong with you. So, what Cheetos has done is they’ve celebrated the orange and that orange is in everything they do. And it’s a very specific orange. They celebrate on your fingers. They celebrate it in the Chester, the Cheetah. Chester, the Cheetah will never have an affair, will never beat somebody up. It’s an iconic person that the brand completely controls that is instantly recognizable, lovable, interesting, and fun. Those are the character attributes of Chester. The cheetah reflects the personality of the Cheetos product. Now, obviously it’s a, it’s a fried piece of cheesy corn, right? There is no inherent personality in cheesy corn, but the Cheetos, the Fritos company, has created a personality behind this great product. So that’s a good example of consistent use of personality and reflecting that personality in terms of like characters or celebrities or, you know, endorsements or whatever.

Britt Brewer (13:12):
Um, along that perfect segue into when you talking about celebrities and somebody, you know, everybody knows who has a tremendous brand. I hear you might have a story that involves a Chuck Norris.

Ernie Harker (13:23):
I do have a story! Best day of my life!

Britt Brewer (13:28):
I’d love to hear it.

Ernie Harker (13:30):
Thank you. I’m glad you brought up. When I was working at Maverik, we, my amazing creative team. And I think it’s really important to know that to oftentimes I get credit for building Maverik’s brand, but there’s no way I could have done it without like amazing, talented people there. And I basically was the guide that would like direct things, but so often other people came up with a good ideas and one of those ideas was let’s give away a big sweepstakes prize for our loyalty program and we’re going to call it Truck Norris. Okay. Truck Norris, like, um, okay. Uh, so what does that look like? How does that feel? And so anyway, for that, if we do this, we’re going to get sued. Unless we get permission from Chuck Norris, our ad agency, that places our media contacted over months, it took forever to get ahold of the Norris family.

Ernie Harker (14:26):
We finally got hooked up with, with Chuck Norris. We, um, and we did, uh, some filming. So I got to go down with, um, our film crew to go down and visit with, uh, Chuck Norris at, on his ranch in Navasota. And we were doing some TV commercials and — he is a guy that works out all the time. Like he was like 70 years old with them. Oh my gosh. And this guy is a rockstar. He w I work out all the time. He, he destroyed me…seriously destroyed. I was sore for four days afterwards, but here’s, here’s the cool story. So we’ve built, we just spent all this time filming. And, uh, I worked out with them that afternoon. And while we were working out, he said, “Hey, will you come over for dinner to the house?” Now he has these little cabins on his property.

Ernie Harker (15:19):
That me and the, uh, the film crew from Maverik were staying at. And so the idea to go to his house and have dinner was like epic. Okay. And the people that worked with Chuck Norris are gone. This doesn’t happen very often, just so you know. So we’re, we’re super, super excited. I find myself sitting right next to Chuck Norris. Chuck Norris is on my left at the head of the table. I’m to his right. And after meatloaf and mashed potatoes that we made together, I baked bread for him. That’s another story. But after, after dinner, he turns to me and says, “well, Ernie, what do you want to do now?” And I saw his, he showed me his theater room before I go, “Chuck,” actually, his name is Carlos and his family calls him Carlos. So I’m trying to use the, like the familiar term, “Carlos, it would be so cool, and it sounds corny, for us to go watch a Chuck Norris movie in your theater with you, would you do that?” And he goes, he slams the table and he goes, “let’s do it!” And I’m like, this is awesome. By the way, I’m sitting right next to Chuck Norris in this huge, Lazy Boy with a huge slice of apple pie and vanilla ice cream on there, we’re reclined. And we’re watching “Force of One” together with Chuck Norris. And I’m like, today could not get any better…and tears rolling down my cheeks.

Britt Brewer (16:49):
Is he giving you like color commentary throughout the entire film? I would’ve been like, “tell me about this scene, Carlos.”

Ernie Harker (16:55):
Yes, he, he actually did a couple of times. Um, he said “that water was freezing cold.” He had to jump into a river. He said, “that water is freezing cold. It doesn’t look as cold as it is, but it was freezing cold. I hated doing that. I think we did two takes and I didn’t want to do anymore.” So it was fun to hear, uh, his stories and to sit down

Carolyn Schnare (17:15):
That’s a guy who knows how to brand himself.

Ernie Harker (17:17):
Yes, yes. Uh, and he under, he definitely appreciates his brand very, very well. He knows exactly who he is and who his customers are, his audiences.

Carolyn Schnare (17:30):
That’s, that’s a cool story. Thanks for sharing that. And I had no idea, I guess I’m not as much of aficionado as maybe you are, especially now thatI know his name is Carlos, but I will, now the whole world will know the whole Convenience Matters listening world.

Ernie Harker (17:45):
So when you see him, when you see him on the street, you say, hello, Mr. Carlos,

Carolyn Schnare (17:50):
And then give him a big hug. He probably loves that.

Britt Brewer (17:52):
I did meet him at the NACS Show 2019. He was with us. I stood with him for a few minutes. He was a very cool guy.

Ernie Harker (18:00):
He is great.

Carolyn Schnare (18:00):
Ernie, in our time in our time remaining, we’ve got, you know, a little bit longer. We could spend all day here. This is always fun talking to you. Um, the reason I brought up, uh, talking, uh, remembering your very first time on, on, on one of our next stages, this is going back shoot five, six, seven years ago, maybe. And you had the backpack, you were, you were living adventure on that stage. You were not only ranting yourself, but branding, cause you were speaking about, about Maverik at the time. Um, but uh, you went on obviously to continue to write your book, “Your Brand Sucks,” and it’s not directed at anyone here. Um, obviously. What were some of the things, um, that you, that, that our audience here that our listeners will learn, but then also, um, you know, we’ll tell you where to get it later, of course. But, um, what are some of the main key nut in a quick, very quick nutshell, the things that you’re going to teach someone when they look at your book.

Ernie Harker (18:51):
Awesome. Awesome. Sure. I started at one point in time with seven different steps and I’ve been able to whittle those down into four different steps. And I use those four steps when I consult with people. Um, they’re the, they’re the most important elements of branding. The first one is to understand what your brand spark is the key point of difference between your organization and every other organization. And that can either be discovered that’s natural, or it can be created. For example, Maverik, the adventure brand was not something naturally inside of Maverik already, but it was created. And I was identified as a strong brand attribute that the owners of the company, the, um, the customers of the, of the, of Maverik enjoyed. And so we, we created a brand spark around adventure. Some organizations actually have something very unique about their organization already.

Ernie Harker (19:53):
And those that, that brand spark needs to be mind kind of brushed off and then polished and then presented to their customers in a way that’s remarkable. The first thing is brand discover your brand spark. The second is identify your target customer. Now in the convenience world, I’ve heard multiple times – so anybody who drives a car, anybody who eats food is our target customer. And that’s not really the case just because they buy from you, doesn’t make them their target customer think about who’s the lowest hanging fruit. It takes the least amount of effort to get the greatest amount of revenue from who buys most often from you. So increased frequency and also buys the most. What’s their basket size from you. So that’s your target customer and it’s important to then once you know what your brand spark is and who your customers, your target customer is, what is your core belief?

Ernie Harker (20:53):
What is it about your org, your company that you bring to the world that is more, um, more important than the money you make. Why do you do this? Why do you serve these customers? What is it that you’re going to bring to them? That’s above and beyond just making a buck, because that drives a lot of the things that you, you end up doing. You know, what charitable organizations, you, you belong to, the language and tone that you use to communicate with your customers. Um, uh, and then the last thing is, this is the most fun it’s establishing your brand adjectives. What five or six adjectives would you use to describe your company? Two of which can’t be used to describe any other competitor. Once you have those four building blocks, you can then go about curating the visual and verbal language to represent it. And what’s interesting about branding is colors, patterns, textures, fonts, it have inherent personalities to them. Red has its own personality. You don’t get to change it. Red means energetic, aggressive, you know, sometimes angry. That’s what red means. Yellow means happy, cheerful, bright. Light blue means calm, peaceful. You don’t get to, uh, you know, sat “well, we’re a really laid back company that it’s all about peace and just harmony and stuff so we want to go with red and black as our colors.”

Ernie Harker (22:39):

[inaudible]

Ernie Harker (22:39):
Right, customers, right? So what’d you do, you are, you can figure out, well, what fonts should I use? Because the fonts have specific personalities that attributed to them. Um, they can be described a certain way using adjectives that used you. You’ve used to describe your company. So use those adjectives and your, your core belief then to go out and start, um, I guess, analyzing or looking at bonds, colors, textures, patterns, images, styles, so that you can curate a brand image, look and feel that is congruent with who you are. So those are the four steps. And I think, when, when organizations followed this process, they can sharpen an existing brand or rebrand themselves the way Maverik did back in 2001 from a very cowboy Western brand with an independent spirit, to an outdoor adventure brand with an independent spirit.

Carolyn Schnare (23:41):
That’s really cool as the whole time I’m sitting here thinking, like looking at our Convenience Matters logo And I’m like, it’s green and what else can I use? What can I do with them, with, with us to describe us. So I think I have some homework on this one too, because, you know, obviously we want a lot of listeners and we want to know what they’re talking about. So, or what they’re thinking about. So I’ve got some homework to do and Britt – you and I will talk because…

Britt Brewer (24:03):
I mean, I’ve got brand guidelines coming out of my ears for NACS can talk all day long about the importance of owning the C, like the Cheetos, you know, owning the orange and you know, that we’re fresh and we’re kind of breathing life into the convenience industry. And there is a lot of thought that went into our rebrand a few years ago. Right? Yeah. I can talk about that all day.

Ernie Harker (24:20):
And Britt, that’s beautiful because when you say breathing life and vitality and freshness into the convenience industry, the colors you’ve selected are perfectly matched for that. It’s like, okay, we’re here. We mean business. Yeah. So you guys are doing now. Now it’s about telling the story and making sure the story gets out there with other images and vocabulary that reinforces that freshness

Britt Brewer (24:49):
Through things like podcasts, telling our stories with the awesome guests like yourself. Exactly. Full circle. See that’s how we do that full circle. We did it.

Ernie Harker (24:59):
Um, you guys are awesome.

Carolyn Schnare (25:01):
So Ernie, um, now I’ve talked enough about “Your Brand Sucks”, the book. Can you tell us a little bit about where to find it, and then also a little bit about where other folks and listeners can find more about you, too.

Ernie Harker (25:13):
You betcha! Well, all of, uh, so my book is available on Amazon just to look for “Your Brand Sucks: How to Ignite a Brand That Doesn’t,” and I don’t expect people to think that their brand actually sucks, but it should give them pause to reflect and go, “does my brand suck, or what can I do to make it less sucky?” Um, so it’s available on Kindle. It’s available, it’s in print. And I just, uh, have it published on Audible now. And you’ll be able to hear my voice, read my book with all of the energy and passion that I bring to the table. So it’s about three and a half hours long. So it’s not a big, long book. This isn’t a book that takes a lot of effort to read, but it’s definitely something that you would reference hang onto the book and then kind of go back and reference it as you’re going through your brand evolution.

Britt Brewer (25:59):
I bet that was fun. Reading your own book, and now being able to pass that on to everyone else to really like, Hey, if you can’t come to one of my, you know, a place where I’m the keynote speaker, you can hear my energy and what I’m passionate about. I bet that was a blast.

Ernie Harker (26:15):
It, it was super, super fun, but I got, I tend to speak really fast when I’m excited. And so I had to like redo hours of it. Yeah.

Carolyn Schnare (26:25):
They’re like “slow down Ernie.” Wasn’t an hour and 20 minutes and they’re like, “no, try it again.”

Ernie Harker (26:35):
I slowed down myself in audio. It just sounded like this.

Ernie Harker (26:42):
Fun fact, anybody who’s listening on the podcast, it, depending on where you’re listening, you can put us in like time and a half speed or double speed or slower speed. So if we all talk too fast for you, just go back, download it again, hit the half-time speed. And it’ll all make sense to you.

Ernie Harker (26:58):
Awesome. Awesome. Hey, people can reach [email protected] if they’d like to reach out. Um, so I’d, I’d love to field any questions or any, you know, comments and stuff like that. So thanks so much for having me Carolyn and Britt. You guys are awesome.

Carolyn Schnare (27:13):
Gosh, it was great to catch up with you again. It’s been way too long. Well, thank you so much for teaching us some ideas. Go ahead and check out a great book, a great read or listen, and, um, and thank you so much for listening to convenience matters.

Convenience Matters Closing (27:27):
[Music] Convenience Matters is brought to you by NACS and produced in partnership with Human Factor. For more information, visit convenience.org.