Brand building has been making a comeback. As one of the current marketing buzzwords, it’s thrown around in phrases like: “we need a brand expert” and “we want to build our brand.” While the term is used – or misused – outdated or just plain wrong, assumptions about branding persist. Here’s a list of five to forget immediately:
1) Brand is only advertising/graphical
Although I often think common sense will remove these assumptions, unfortunately I’ve seen this repeatedly in very painful ways. Not too many years ago, I attended a sales and marketing kickoff that included the unveiling of a new corporate brand. The “Why should anyone would care?” and “Why is this relevant?” were missing. The CMO, who only had an advertising background didn’t have the experience or possibly the desire to bridge the gap between visual image and what was being sold.
There are great CMOs that have come from the advertising discipline, but each that’s been successful has embraced the full business environment. A company’s brand cannot sit separately from the rest of sales and marketing. Like an integrated marketing program that leverages themes to create a greater impact, a good brand program pulsates through every aspect of the company.
2) Quality technology wins over a strong brand
You silly, silly engineers. Don’t kid yourself into believing if you have a better product, people will naturally pick it. The reality is most people purchase what they know, not what’s the best after thorough side-by-side comparisons. Of course, the perfect company has the best product and a strong brand, but if you have to pick one, pick the strong brand. Just ask Syncplicity. What, you’ve never heard of it? Now owned by EMC, Syncplicity may be a better option than Box.com, but its market share is a fraction of its competitors.
3) Brand development is a one-way communication
This was never true, and in a world with social media is even less so. In 2012, McDonald’s tried to promote how good it was for farmers and the freshness of its produce with a paid Twitter campaign - #MeettheFarmers. How could the McDonald’s marketing team not see what was coming when it morphed to #MDstories? While McDonald’s wanted to promote its quality, instead the brand was overwhelmed with individual negative experiences, nutritional facts, and ugly rumors.
4) Global brands and positioning are the same worldwide
I’d like to say that only a fool would think they can use the same brand attributes and messaging globally, but it would be rude to call so many people fools. Instead, let me give two simple examples. Marketing automation is a widely-used term in the US. However, when starting to sell in Europe, Marketo used the much simpler term of email marketing. How did it know to do this? By monitoring social media and general business conversation, the Marketo marketing team learned what terms where used and understood in the local marketplace.
Conversely, at this same time, I began working with Luma, a Belgium-based company that originally used the term marketing automation to describe its SaaS tool. Luma’s offering had nothing to do with email marketing and thoroughly confused US marketers. Even though technically Luma’s offering was automating part of the marketing process, it was more aligned with localized web-to-print offerings than what most marketers now define as marketing automation. Without listening and understanding what is being said in each region, companies are doomed to at best have missteps and at worse alienate potential customers.
All marketing trends are cyclical. Branding won’t stay the sought-after buzzword. That’s fine. What all marketers need to learn and embrace is branding’s role in an effective overall marketing approach.