Leaders make a difference, especially in directing the point of their organization and brands.

This post is about two premier organizations and brands that have struggled, and their leadership is helping them reclaim or squander their point.  Their point is their purpose, promise and practice.

One organization knows and understands its dire situation and its leadership is reclaiming its point.

The other organization is adrift as leaders muddle their organization and brands’ path to irrelevance and possibly extinction.

The former organization is Xe Services LLC, a global security contractor with important U.S. government contracts, state-of-the-art training facilities and an experienced global work force experienced in the world’s most dangerous places. It was known as Blackwater Worldwide.

Its new leader Ted Wright is leading his brand’s rebirth facing an uncertain regulatory climate and heightened public scrutiny of the private-security business. He also is trying to distance Xe from its original ownership and management without compromising its legacy — a willingness to risk death or injury to protect clients in combat zones.

His leadership approach is reflected in this Wall Street Journal quote:

“Do I think the rebranding of Xe was successful? Absolutely not,” Mr. Wright said. “Here’s the reason why: All they did was change the name of the company; they didn’t change the company.”

Wright’s leadership strategy is supported by these actions practicing his points:

• Relocating its North Carolina headquarters to Arlington, Va., close to its primary customers — the State Department, the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies.
• Hiring a new governance chief to oversee ethics and legal compliance.
• Assembling an independent board that includes former government officials, such as former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and retired Navy Adm. Bobby Inman.
• Instilling a culture of greater openness and transparency to its government overseers and the public and a new emphasis on compliance and accountability.

The other organization is RIM, makers of the Blackberry, a device that revolutionized corporate communications. As recently as five years ago, BB had 48% of the U.S. smartphone market.

Its share has fallen to 11.6%  (June ’11), placing it third behind phones powered by Google Inc.’s Android system and the Apple iPhone, the Journal reports. Now, the leadership is under siege from angry investors.

And the recent launch of its first tablet, the PlayBook, epitomizes its lack of leadership that is eroding its point:

• Some executives, like RIM’s technical visionary and co-chief executive Mike Lazaridis, saw the PlayBook as an extension of the BlackBerry, long favored by corporations and business people.
• Others pushed for more focus on ordinary consumers — people eager for games, music and movies, according to executives close to the company.
• Early PlayBook reviews had been scathing, especially about the inability to read email without tethering it to a BlackBerry.
• Co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Lazaridis wouldn’t take the stage, at the last minute, of the PlayBook news launch, standing up journalists, analysts and customers.

Leadership also seemed at odds in smartphone business decisions:

• Resisted early calls for consumer-friendly features such as cameras or music, not wanting the lower margin of the cutthroat consumer-phone market, and fearing such features would be objected to by the government and military agencies, its biggest customers.
• Faced distractions, at a decisive point in the smartphone market, from legal issues and extracurricular activities. RIM had an extensive legal battle with a patent holding company that finally settled in 2006. It also had to investigate claims of back-dated stock options. Leaders apparently were pursuing science and sports projects outside of RIM.

RIM’s entry into the tablet computer market has been disappointing. It shipped just 200,000 PlayBooks in the three months ended in August. That was less than 50% the number shipped in the preceding quarter and a small fraction of the 9.3 million iPads Apple Inc. shipped in the three months ended in June, the Journal reports.

That’s a dire situation and it doesn’t appear to be improving at RIM.

What are the fundamentals of point leadership that Xe must continue and RIM needs to adopt:

1. The brand point is your mission – you are the CPO – Chief Point Officer.
2. In practicing and promoting the point, you must be crystal clear and focused – don’t chase two chickens.
3. Drive change from the top down – – sh#%&t rolls downhill and success trickles all over like a roaring stream.
4. Lead major changes in culture and practices not just gestures – genuine and demonstrable change that impresses all constituencies and powerfully directs brands and organizations.
5. Build versus milk your assets – namely your brand and organization point through practices, products and services – commit to investing for the long-term.
6. Listen, hear and meet your customers’ needs and desires and engage them in the systems and processes to make change happen or risk being stampeded into extinction.
7. Get out and keep ahead of the market personally – be present, be visible, be connected.
8. If the past doesn’t fit the future, detach from it graciously, thoughtfully and completely.
9. Act or be acted upon – you can make change happen. And be mindful that the cure is worse than the disease; things will get better before they get worse and the easy way out leads back in, thanks Peter Senge.

It’s painful to watch such a dominant organization brand like RIM lose its direction and point.

It’s rewarding to see such a challenged brand like Xe get its act together and be lead back to its point and success.

So who will prosper of these two brands and organizations? How are you leading your point and what is your success formula?

I’m always looking for new ways to improve marketing PR strategy. I recently read the Michaelson’s Sun Tzu Strategies for Marketing.

I love their 12 essential principles for winning the war for customers:

1. Honor the customer – if the customer doesn’t purchase your product or service, nothing else matters.
2. Organization of intelligence – know your market as well as you know yourself.
3. Maintenance of the objective – have a clear intention and a steady aim.
4. A secure position – occupy a position that cannot easily be taken by your opponents.
5. Offense in action – keep on the offensive to secure remember freedom of action.
6. Surprise – is the best way to gain psychological dominance and deny the initiative to your opponent.
7. Maneuver – the easiest routes are often the most heavily defended; the longest way around can be the shortest way home.
8. Concentration of resource – mass sufficiently superior force at the decisive place and time.
9. Economy of force – assess accurately where you employ your resources.
10. Command structure – the management process unleashes the power of human resources.
11. Personal leadership – it requires the leader’s faith in his people and their faith in the leader’s ability to win.
12. Simplicity – even the simplest plans are difficult to execute.

Those are simple and powerful principles. They all resonate with me but my four favorites are honor the customer, organization of intelligence, maintenance of the objective, personal leadership and simplicity.

What are your favorite principles and which had proven to be most effective in your marketing and business strategy?

Here are some new, compelling insights about local and community news consumption in America today.

Americans chose a wide range of platforms for local news and information, and where they turn varies considerably depending on subject matter and age, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism and Internet & American Life Project:

• Most Americans, including more tech-savvy adults under age 40, blend both new and traditional sources to get their
  information. This indicates a richer and more nuanced ecosystem of community news and information.
• Americans tend to rely on local TV news for just a few topics—mainly weather, breaking news, and to a lesser degree, traffic.
• Younger adults rely on local television less, indicating more vulnerability for TV’s future.
• Most Americans (69%) say that if their local newspaper no longer existed, it would not have a major impact on their ability to keep up with community information and news.
• However, newspapers play a larger role in people’s lives than previously realized.
• Newspapers (both the print and online versions, though primarily print) rank first or tie for first as the source people rely on most for 11 of the 16 different kinds of local information asked about—more topics than any other media source.
• The Web generally is a main source for information about restaurants and other local businesses.
• The Internet is tied with newspapers as a top source for material about housing, jobs and schools—all areas that place a special value on consumer input.
• Looking at the 79% of Americans who are online, the internet is the first or second most relied-upon source for 15 of the 16 local topics examined.
• For adults under 40, the web is first for 11 of the top 16 topics—and a close second on four others.

What is the point for your brand and strategic PR plans?

• Your media relations strategy will benefit from a multi-media approach – all platforms are meaningful, especially for the shareability of news across platforms.
• You will benefit from seriously considering newspapers, especially related to community relations programs.
• Be aware that TV is very local and has an expanding news hole with plenty opportunities for local, well-conceived community-oriented pitches.
• Net, net, net – keep thinking of how Internet news affects you and create compelling and relevant video to tell your story.

How do you think this new information will affect your PR efforts? Do you find similar or opposing insights in your daily work with local media?

Relevance.

With it, your brand soars. Without it, your brand plummets.

Relevance is fickle. You can bask in it today and then grasp for it tomorrow.

And you may never reclaim it.

Brand relevance is the most emotional and potent brand attribute.

David Aaker, famous U.C. Berkeley marketing professor, defines brand relevance as having the credibility and visibility to be considered. And about developing offerings so innovative that competitors are simply not relevant. More details are in his new Brand Relevance: Making Competitors Irrelevant.

Relevance can propel your Brand to the Presidency.

In two years, irrelevance can leave Brand Obama struggling to combat seemingly irrelevant, but formidable opponents.  The brand’s struggle in opinion polls  makes news as it faces irrelevance.

Brand Obama is losing as Brand Republican gains relevance that Brand Obama forfeited.

Relevance can be reclaimed using these fundamentals:

1. Message – diligently evaluate your message to reflect values deeply meaningful to your voters and fans. Jobs, jobs and jobs? If the results are not forthcoming, show the strategic process you are following to achieve them.
2. Meaning – do you still matter? Do you command attention? Can you instill confidence? In the heart can you stir a feeling that can’t be resisted and even something inspirational? Maybe, and you can consider further advice about reclaiming relevance. It’s a brand’s value proposition that commands investment of time and money, and votes.
3. Messenger – reengage your spirit, mission and capabilities. Prove that you know, understand and believe in yourself, your values and the public values. Speak from the heart not from your balance sheet or roll calls. Get better players, staffers and ideas. Most of all, command leadership. Be able and willing to confront and challenge as much as build consensus. Relevance demands it.
4. Market –  really, really know and understand your fans and voters as your “hope” message demonstrated. FDR and Ronald Reagan spoke directly to the voting public: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” or “Only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” That’s the target market – voters not donors. That’s who lead the Brand Obama storm into the White House.
5. Mission – this point leads all fundamentals. It is about serving, engaging, connecting, leading, proving and most of all adding value – sympathy, compassion and action. It could be as simple Nordstrom’s customer service credo – “do everything to satisfy the customer.”  

Why am I talking politics in this post?  Because politics reveals brand relevance at its rawest, emotional and powerful level.

Three years ago, we saw an Obama brand groundswell that Apple would envy.

Voters, fans and buyers want relevance and even inspiration from Presidents and brands now or they will abandon you.

Think Jimmy Carter and Blackberry.

So, how are your brand and organization staying relevant? How are you ensuring that relevance?

What lessons can brands learn from Simon Cowell, whose newest show X-Factor debuts tonight?

They can learn that the point of successful brands is meaning and moving.

Simon’s meaning is about being an accomplished, demanding music authority, who expresses his point of view genuinely, candidly and even helpfully.  

Really, he can be a curmudgeon, but he knows his business.  Ask Susan Boyle.

He moves us in two primal ways – love and hate.

• You love Simon because you can’t say what he says.
• You hate him because you won’t say what he says.

Meaning and moving are his brand difference that rings cash registers, pads his wallet and draws fans

Want proof:

• The British X-Factor 30-second commercial for almost $400,000 in 2010.
• Simon earned $90 million in 2010.
• X-Factor has about 3.4 million Facebook likes now.

Simon even claims his brand essence is simple in a recent GQ profile that leads:

“He likes what we like. His tastes are our tastes – simple and normal and right down the middle.”

Simon even watches cartoons rather than depressing morning news and feels happy all day.

So Simon is the perfect brand essence model – his meaning moves us.

What does your brand get the point of meaning and how will your customers be moved?