You Are the Brand

E*TRADE: When Your Brand Is a “Baby”

How important can a baby—who can’t even talk—be to a brand? Just ask the folks at E*TRADE, the online trading company that created theYouTube sensation (as well as “water cooler” conversation) when it kicked off a series of entertaining, highly digitizedTV commercials featuring babies, in particular a really cute baby “talking” about the importance of investing.With the debut ad during Super Bowl XLII in 2008, E*TRADE’s brand was embedded into many people’s minds.That’s what a creative, entertaining, and memorable piece of communication can do for a brand. But there’s also a potential downside to this branding strategy that serves as a lesson to all of us. Baby #1: The Face of E*TRADE In this now-famous ad, a baby is sitting with another baby at a computer screen.They are clearly in a child’s room, but they are talking to each other in “adult” voices. The first E*TRADE spot that really grabbed everyone’s attention was the “BrokenWings” song spot. In the commercial, the lead baby tries to persuade the other baby that he’d have better luck if he invested via E*TRADE rather than messing around with the lottery. The other baby starts singing the line “take these broken wings” and is then scolded by the lead baby. It is a very funny and memorable commercial. When you’re branding , being memorable is key, and this campaign hit a home run on that point. (Think about how many commercials you forget.) I’m not sure how much of E*TRADE’s services people actually remember or purchased from this ad, but they clearly connect these babies (particularly the lead baby) with the E*TRADE brand. It wasn’t just his face, but it was his expressions and the exquisitely matched “adult” voice. All in all, E*TRADE got two years of suc154 E*TRADE When Your Brand Is a “Baby” Adubato_(Brand)_final 4/11/11 11:29 AM Page 154 cessful advertising footage from Baby #1—the ad drew to the E*TRADE Web site many people who wanted to find out more about what these babies were “selling.” The little tyke even developed an online following, with 12,000 fans on Facebook and 3,000 followers on Twitter.1 But, as is often the case with kids, the babies got older, and their looks changed. So, E*TRADE had little choice but to put out a casting call for a new baby. Baby #2: Cute, But . . . You might think that a baby is a baby and all babies are cute, but while the new baby that was picked for the 2010 E*TRADE spots was cute enough, he just wasn’t Baby #1. Some media experts say he didn’t have the right face. He didn’t have “the look.” He just didn’t connect with viewers. That’s the funny thing about brand recognition, whether you’re talking about babies or financial service companies, the image needs to hit you viscerally in the gut— not just the head.That’s the way a lot of branding communication works. It’s subjective but no less significant. E*TRADE certainly isn’t the first company to hit it big using a cute kid as a branding strategy.Years back, Gerber created an incredibly successful brand by putting the so-called “Gerber baby” on its baby food jars and boxes. It was easier back then. The same baby could appear on millions of packages of baby food for generations without change.The baby didn’t have to talk or appear “live” on the Internet. Coppertone suntan lotion, too, created a visual brand with a little girl and a dog that stayed cute and adorable in print for ages. Branding via print advertising is very different than efforts in today’s digital world. Then came the TV ad for Life cereal in 1972 that gave the first hint that the electronic age changes things. One of the biggest reasons I liked Life cereal when I was a kid was because Mikey liked it. In theTV commercial, Mikey’s brothers weren’t sure if they wanted to taste the cereal because allegedly it was healthy food: “I’m not gonna try it—you try it!” Then one brother says, “Let’s get Mikey. He hates everything!” But of course, Mikey did like it.The kid was adorable.The way he ate the cereal was genuine...