Happy 50th anniversary, Nutella

I'm so proud to be Italian. We built aqueducts that still function 2,000 years later. We nurtured Michelangelo, da Vinci, Puccini, and Anna Magnani. And we gave the world Nutella. This WNYC story by Dan Charles tells a great little corporate history of Ferrero, its wartime invention of Nutella, and how it drives the hazelnut market. The chocolate maker had to mix hazelnuts into its confections when it couldn't procure enough cocoa in World War II. Nutella was then sold in bars as pasta gianduja (here, pasta means paste). In 1964 it became Nutella in jars and has since become an international staple. 

A tasteful (!) anniversary campaign by Ferrero includes some polished corporate storytelling, including a portal that invites Nutella nuts to tell their own stories. A web store offers affordable celebration items, pictured above. 

Because of Nutella and a genetic tendency toward tree blight, hazelnuts are in short supply. The WNYC story reports that tree scientists at my alma mater Rutgers are working on a disease-resistant strain that can be cultivated worldwide. Glad that people at Rutgers are concentrating on something other than the Big Ten these days. While I freely admit that I prefer the company's other products, especially Ferrero-Rocher chocolate bon bons and Tic-Tacs, I nonetheless extend a big congratulazioni per il tuo cinquantesimo anniversario to Nutella.

Oshkosh Corporation: “About Us” Evaluation by Corporate History.net

Oshkosh Corporation, founded in 1917 as the Wisconsin Duplex Auto Company, is a leading manufacturer of access equipment, specialty vehicles, and truck bodies. Major brands include Oshkosh (defense vehicles), JLG (aerial work platforms), Pierce (fire trucks), McNeilus (concrete mixers, refuse collection), Jerr-Dan (towing), and CON-E-CO (concrete batch plants). Obviously they’re not to be confused with the Oshkosh B’Gosh company, part of Carter’s Inc., which makes clothes for kids. Still headquartered in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Oshkosh Corporation employs 12,300 people and had 2012 revenue of $8.18 billion. Its main About Us page is here.

OVERALL GRADE: B-

Oshkosh would get an A grade except for its Company History page, which has been under construction for some time. Given the company’s long history and the well-written text on the other pages, we’re expecting something splendid. But why leave this vital page virtually blank, especially with a 100th anniversary coming up in less than three years?

Products/Services: A

Oshkosh’s About Us pages are terrific: short, pithy, powerful. The main page has a great one-sentence summary of the company: what it does (“designs and builds the world’s toughest specialty trucks and truck bodies and access equipment”) and how it does it (“by working shoulder-to-shoulder with the people who use them”). A few more lines briefly elaborate. A picture of an amazing vehicle tops the page, and at the right is a photo of CEO Charles L. Szews, with a quote that reinforces the summary. This is a perfect example of our Commandment 2 of About Us pages: “Thou shalt not generalize.” From our first look at the main About Us page, we know exactly what Oshkosh’s products are and what the company’s attitude is toward its customers.

The Company Profile page gives a similarly pithy one-page overview of the company’s major brands and what each one’s specialty is, and adds the company’s founding date, a list of worldwide operations, and total employees. Minor point: the link to the video is broken ... but we’d rather see a photo of another cool truck, anyway. A little more corporate storytelling would go a long way here.

The Technology & Innovation page (again with great pics) also refers to the company’s founding: a nice use of corporate history to reinforce the idea that Oshkosh is in this for the long haul. The Acquisitions page lists Oshkosh’s major acquisitions, again briefly but with links to further information. More surprisingly, it lists the criteria they use when considering an acquisition: a happy variation on the usual tedious list of names and years.

Personality: C

Oshkosh starts to convey its personality on the main About Us page, where they feature a photo of one of their high-tech trucks alongside a photo of CEO Charlie Szews and a relevant quote by him. Given that great start, it’s puzzling that we can’t find any pages listing the corporate leadership, either under About Us or the Investors tab. Googling “Charlie Szews,” we found a page on Oshkosh’s site that has his bio ... but the fact that we had to resort to Google means there’s a serious navigation problem.

Accessibility: A

Our Commandment 8 of About Us pages is: “Remember to make yourself and your organization easily accessible.” Many organizations seem unwilling to give names and emails of department heads. Bravo to Oshkosh, whose Contact Us page lists half a dozen departments with names as well as titles, and actual email addresses rather than an online form.

TAKEAWAY

Keep your text brief and to the point, and supplement it with pictures that show what you do and who you are. But don’t allow blank pages to linger, especially when you have an exceptionally rich business history.

Does your Web site’s “About Us” section accurately convey your organization’s history and capabilities? Every two weeks we evaluate one example, grading it in three areas that are key to potential customers: Personality (Who are you?), Products/Services (What can you do for us?), and Accessibility (How can we reach you?). To talk about your About Us page, contact us!

Today’s example was chosen at random; CorporateHistory.net has no ties to this company.

Branding starts with your creation story

Patrick Hanlon’s Primal Branding is a bit dated (originally published in 2006) but still fascinating. It analyzes why certain brands gain “visceral traction in the marketplace,” while other brands with equally good offerings fail. Crux: Branding is a belief system. Specifically, Hanlon (who also blogs for Forbes.com) says the “creation story is the crucial first step in providing answers to why people should care about you, or your product or service.” If “creation story” sounds a lot like corporate history, that's because they're almost identical.

Excerpt: The creation story not only answers who you are and where you come from, but helps set up the further pieces of primal code (creed, icons, rituals, pagans, sacred words, leader). Every company was started somewhere, somehow, by someone. Like telling a good tale, the opportunity is how to make it interesting…. It’s all about creating a sense of meaning. When people believe in and belong to a brand it’s no longer about the task, it’s about the experience. When people shop for outdoor equipment they don’t say, “We went shopping for a tent.” They say, “We went to REI.” When they travel out of state to gamble, they don’t just say, “We went gambling.” They say, “We went to Vegas.” 

Further, Hanlon points out that while the creation story may be well known to old hands at a company, newer employees may not have a clue. This, he says, “results in a fractured culture, with people who … have internalized what the company is about, while everyone else (managers included) stumble along.” Great reason to include basic company history in onboarding sessions (print, video, displays). And to spruce up your website's About Us or Our Story pages. Be honest: When did you last update those? Our bimonthly reviews of About Us pages reveals that many companies with major brands don't pay sufficient attention to their web history presence.

The power of a good creation story was hammered home today by a sponsorship spot on a WNYC newscast. I heard and remembered a pitch by Veteran Movers: founded by an ex-Marine; gives jobs to vets; does moving jobs in the NY metro area. That's all I need to know. The story sticks. If I heard someone was moving, I'd say "Hey, have you heard of Veteran Movers? Sounds like they're worth checking out." All on the strength of 10 seconds of creation story!

Ben Nye: “About Us” Evaluation by Corporate History.net

As makeup director at 20th Century Fox for decades, Benjamin (“Ben”) Nye, Sr., was responsible for over 500 films spanning the 1930s to the 1980s. If you’ve seen Gone with the Wind, Miracle on 34th Street, The King and I, or Planet of the Apes, you've seen his work. When Nye retired in 1967, he founded the Ben Nye Makeup Company, which today is based in a Los Angeles headquarters and run by his son Dana. The company’s About Us page is here.

OVERALL GRADE: A minus

The Ben Nye Makeup site is a great illustration of our Commandment 1 of About Us pages: “Know thy audience.” The product isn't sold retail; it's sold via authorized retailers to professionals, and the photos and text are geared to such visitors.

Products/Services and Personality: A

The About Us page, “The Ben Nye Story” (accessed via the “Read the Ben Nye Story” link on the Home page) proves that you don’t need a dozen nested About Us pages to show your company’s true colors. Ben Nye’s single page describes the founder’s career as a Hollywood makeup artist, with examples of the movies he worked on. It discusses his style, which still drives the business, and then moves on to his son, who runs the company today. Then it mentions the company’s products, and finally links to the company’s YouTube channel of tutorials by master makeup artists. As befits a company that sells makeup, the page is crowded with full-color photos of models, movie stars, and makeup.

Our one question is: What does “There’s more to come!” refer to? It’s in the header of the page and repeated again at the end. If it’s something Ben Nye used to say, we’d like to know that.

The other pages on the site are all, in a sense, About Us: four pages of media coverage (In the Media, Theatre News, Artists at Work, At the Show) and In Print, a collection of product brochures.

Accessibility: B

The site doesn't even have a Contact Us page: the barest of information (mailing address and telephone) appears on the Catalog Request page. But Ben Nye Makeup doesn't operate a retail store, and its products are sold only through authorized dealers, so this seems adequate.

TAKEAWAY

You can be brief, yet brilliant, in relating your business history. Focus on what makes you unique and great.

Does your Web site’s “About Us” section accurately convey your organization’s history and capabilities? Every two weeks we evaluate one example, grading it in three areas that are key to potential customers: Personality (Who are you?), Products/Services (What can you do for us?), and Accessibility (How can we reach you?). To talk about your About Us page, contact us!

Today’s example was chosen at random; CorporateHistory.net has no ties to this company.

Adolphe Sax, business owner

Adolphe Sax (at left, playing horn) did so much more than invent the saxophone. He invented dozens of instruments, including horns with a dozen bells. He founded the factory that made instruments for buyers worldwide (the letter below is addressed to M. Selmer, of the US's Selmer instrument company). It was fun to discover him at the Musical Instrument Museum in Brussels earlier this summer, a place I never expected to find a corporate history on display.

In fact, Sax did so well that people sued him for patent infringement, to the point where he twice declared bankruptcy. Today, who can say which party was right? 

What I like best is that Sax, who lived from 1814 to 1894, called himself a "fabricant inventeur," or maker-inventor. If that description fits your organization's CEO, it's a good one to highlight in your corporate storytelling.