12 BANDT.COM.AU MAY 01 2009

It’s a very simple question. And for many people,this will be relatively easy to answer – theirfavourite brand will either be Google or Apple.

A harder question for many is: what’s yourfavourite Australian brand, and why? While youponder your answer, I’ll share mine with you.Sipping an All Berry Bang smoothie one lunchtimeit occurred to me that I had my favourite Aussiebrand in hand – Boost Juice Bars. Boost providesmy day with a bold splash of colour, and passes thetaste test and the health test. There is also thebrand experience of the juice bars themselves,which a bottled smoothie just can’t deliver. Booststaff are friendly and always seem to be enjoyingthemselves, despite making their 100th smoothieof the day. So just what is the brand’s magicingredient? Well for starters, they have a prettygood brand philosophy – simply “Love life!”

Brooke Ruscuklic, Boost’s internationalbusiness and marketing manager, says: “Ourproduct is about the entire experience – thetheatre of seeing your smoothie made in front ofyou, the vibrant environment with bright colours,loud music and happy people. Naturally, when youwalk out of a store you’re likely to be feeling prettyuplifted before you’ve even had a sip. That’s theBoost Juice difference!”

From a marketing perspective, I think Boost is avery interesting case study in the franchise model,and there are plenty of catering success stories inAustralia. According to a recent BRW magazinefeature, the top 10 fastest-growing franchiseshere include three caterers– Grill’d, SumoSaladand Healthy Habits. Boost doesn’t make it into thefastest-growing list this year but it topped theBRW “Fast franchises” list back in 2005. TodayBoost has over 220 global stores and is expandinginto China.

So what can marketers and wannabefranchisees learn from the Boost example? What isthe key to franchise nirvana? I asked Ruscuklicwhat makes a great franchise partner. “Someonewho is into it because they live the Boost values, asopposed to taking it on purely as a businessventure. They instinctively get the ‘Love life’culture, and are as passionate about the Boostbrand as we are. And the very best franchisepartners are the ones who are working in theirbusiness as well as on their business.”

It seems to me that one of the key thingsbehind running a successful franchise is when yourgrassroots staff live and love the brand.

Last week I read a survey from Careercast.comlisting advertising as the fourth most stressful jobaround. It turns out that we narrowly lost out on apodium position to surgeons, commercial airlinepilots and photo journalists.

Personally, I only have to look in the mirror toconfirm the ravages of my day job. When I startedout I had a thick mane of dark, ringleted hair, oliveskin and stood at an imposing six foot three.

However, the survey did give me cause to thinkabout why we ended up just below a selection ofjobs which might potentially require you to land anaeroplane in the Hudson River, dodge sniper fire in awar zone, or where people genuinely do die if youmess up. I could, of course, reach for the usual ‘woeare us’ reasons – eroded margins since the glorydays of the 1980s without client-serviceexpectations diminishing, or advertising being onthe frontline with industries that suffer whenrecessions blow into town. I’m sure the world weepsfor us. Us and estate agents and financiers.

Truth be told, though, I suspect that there aretwo big reasons that advertising can kick theclackers out of you. One’s endemic and another is ablight that we bring upon ourselves.

The endemic reason lies in the fact that this is adeeply subjective industry with no objectively rightanswer. Worse still, everybody has an opinion,leaving you in a state of almost perpetual argumentwith a suite of self-proclaimed experts that includeyour opinionated self. I did debate club at school fora couple of hours a week and that knocked the windout of me. Little did I know that I’d be doing it forthe duration of a career. (Interestingly, one of theleast stressful jobs on the survey was that of acomputer systems engineer. I mean, the last timethat anything argued back at them was Hal in 2001:A Space Odyssey.)

The self-generated reason lies in the Lord of theFlies environment that advertising tends to breed.Lots of Type A personalities with big egos and lowself-esteem makes for an industry atmosphereoften more akin to American politics than a tradeunion. I doubt actuaries (second least stressfulprofession) preen themselves so relentlessly atindustry functions and then stab each other in theback so adeptly in the blogosphere. No wonder lifein advertising, to borrow a Thomas Hobbes phrase,is often nasty, brutish and short.

You can’t get away from the arguments, but youcan be nice. Failing that, you could always become astatistician.

comm

ent

SO, JUST WHAT IS YOURFAVOURITE BRAND?

WE’LL ALL BE DROPPINGLIKE FLIES PRETTY SOON

TO MAKE A COMMENT EMAIL EDITORIAL@BANDT.COM.AU

Adam JosephInsights manager,Herald Sun

Al CrawfordExecutive planningdirector,Clemenger BBDO

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