No matter how many heads I get nodding about the importance of brand or how many people “get it,” I still feel like brand strategy is the “nice-to-have” while people get on with the business of selling products and services. And really, how can I fault a company that is successful in spite of itself? Many companies know they need to sit down and map out their brand strategy, but few make it a priority. Donald Trump knows he has a bad haircut but he could care less – he’s still a bazillionaire.
When I wrote Branding Basics for Small Business, I tried to put in all my stories and experiences over the years of many of those battles and successes. But at the end of the day, if a company blows out it’s sales number each and every quarter, does anyone really care if the company stands for something, has a clear message or a differentiated personality? Do the shareholders really mind that one person thinks the company does this, but another person thinks the company does something completely different? Do they care that the firm is touting one message, look and feel on their website but look like a completely different company when you see their ads? Do they mind that the firm touts customer service above all else, but the infrastructure and processes are not set up to deliver?
Do they care as long as the company keeps making money?
The analytical part of me says, “You can’t argue with success, so they must be doing something right. Their customers obviously want the product.” The brand strategist in me, though, says, “That has to be short-lived. Something outside of their control is causing the success and whenever it stops, they will not know what to do as they will not have a strong brand to fall back on.” I also think to myself that this is the reason there is such commercial clutter out there in the marketplace: companies that don’t care enough about their brand or messages are just throwing things out into the world to see what sticks. They figure, “As long as we hit the mark 10 times out of 100, that is okay with us because those 10 times will make our numbers for the year.”
That is the difference between quantity and quality. And I for one would rather live in a world full of quality. One where 2 messages are enough to get a target customer to act versus 5-7. Think about that. If every company knew their brand and their target audience so well and could laser-focus their marketing efforts, what a more streamlined, quieter world this would be. How much more relevant to their particular target audience would they be? And how much less noise would the rest of us have to hear?
Enjoy the silence for a moment. At least in your own imagination.
Seth Godin wrote a post today about structuring your day around 5 hours of work instead of 8 or 10 and seeing how much more effective you could be. I love that idea. Sometimes more is just…well, more. Not better, not more relevant, not more productive. Just more.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
At a 50,000ft level I agree. If brands were more on target they would result in diminishing costs and increased revenue — not to mention less communication clutter. I see two hurdles to overcome for this to eventuate. For organisations, true recognition of the return on the emotional connection (ROE) brands make will only come when the C-suite views marketing and branding as a profit centre, not a cost centre — perspective is everything. On the agency side, part of the answer lies in agencies fulfilling on their responsibility to steward a client’s brand, and not follow client requests blindly to make the client “happy” (See Warren Baxter’s musing on client agency relationships http://su.pr/2WKRjF).
Sure, the answer is more complex and enigmatic, but we have to start somewhere.
Thanks Drew. Yes, brand and marketing professionals in general need to be better at showing executives how these costs and efforts impact the bottom line. That is why I preach metrics, metrics, metrics. Measure everything and tie it back to sales as often as you can. Tools like salesforce.com enable you to track a closed sale all the way back to a lead and the tactics that produced it. However, what that type of measurement misses is the 9 times the prospects saw a brand advertisement or heard a great customer story before they decided to engage with the company. That cannot be as easily measured. I used to tell my CEOs that branding is the “air cover” that enables us to get much bettert ROI from the direct marketing tactics we employed. With proper branding, we “earned the right” to be in the prospects inbox or mailbox and it helped our cause. That seemed to make sense to many of them.
To your agency point, you are bang on. Too many agencies become order takers because they are not valued for their professional experience and opinion. When a lawyer makes a reccomendation, it is usually followed no questions asked. Same with an accountant. Until agencies can stand their ground and tell the client, “I’m sorry, but we can’t in good conscience recommend or execute that strategy for you in that manner because we want you to be successful” and point out the risks they run, clients won’t see the real value. I just turned down a potential client who said they wanted a complete re-brand (messaging and visual) in 4 weeks. I told him I don’t take on projects that I think are doomed to fail and a proper re-branding takes more thought and time than that if its going to be worth anything.
That said, many decisions do have some “give” and agencies need to really know which battles their client contact can fight and which ones are too big for them to get into politically. I did not full appreciate this as an Account Manager until I was on the client side and realized al the other pressures and politics that clients have to deal with. The best agencies can do is arm them with the right information and try and guide them down the right path.