Brands and Bullshit Read online

  If your customers feel like they have voluntarily left that continuous surface of features to be with their own kind and travel to your island, they will find themselves traveling on only that feature surface. They will ask which iPad version to buy or which dog breed or which Levi’s shirt. But their consideration of options won’t leave the island. After all, they are BMW people, not Cadillac people. Dog people, not cat people.

  For a competitor to get those customers to leave your island to go to the other surface of land, to earn consideration, is wildly more difficult than anything we have discussed so far. They need to make the person willing to get up and swim, give up where they have been and change their identity. The force this takes, what chemists call the “activation energy,” is dramatically higher. If life on the island gets really bad, folks will flee, but they don’t do it lightly. Rationale? Of course, the dog person says dogs are friendlier. The Levi’s person justifies a higher price based on quality. The BMW owner says Cadillac makes boring cars. But the truth is not in these descriptions. The truth is, these people simply do not consider anything in the other category when they’re trying to figure out how to meet their desires and needs. They are BMW people, dog people, and Levi’s people. And they honestly believe there is no substitute for their brands. So how do you differentiate your brand?

  THE BRAND IS THE DIFFERENCE

  So, now that you are beginning to understand just how critical it is to focus on branding, and more importantly, to differentiate your brand, how do you go about it? This is a critical phase because you can usually only launch a brand or company once. When we launched the Amazon branding, we focused on being different with the breadth of book titles (over 1 million), amazing customer engagement (remembering who you were, allowing you to write reviews, etc.) and a positioning out of the gate that was to establish Amazon as a leader in the book selling category: Earth’s Biggest Bookstore.

  Here are some insights on how you could potentially differentiate a brand:

  PRICE DIFFERENTLY. You can be either the economy bestseller with a low price, or a premium brand with a high price – such as Starbucks, which prices coffee higher to increase perceived quality. In fact, many brand differentiation strategies can help you charge and receive a premium price.

  OWN A NICHE AND THEN EXPAND. Niche products or services have built-in brand differentiation, and the marketing for them should reflect that niche. A good example is Nike which started out just making running shoes. Once they owned that category, they expanded.

  BE THE EXPERT. If your brand is the best at something in your industry, you can differentiate by focusing on your expertise. Domino’s Pizza provides differentiation through its expert home delivery and 30-minute guarantee.

  USE A MASCOT OR SPOKESPERSON. Brand mascots can be powerful differentiators, especially if you want to bring a sense of humor to your brand perceptions. GEICO has created massive success with its mascot– a talking lizard that has nothing to do with insurance, but still makes millions of people believe there’s something different about the company. Be careful, though, as this could backfire as it did with Subway.

  INNOVATE. Innovation can be a key brand differentiator. This type of distinctiveness is common for tech brands –Apple is synonymous with innovation, ease of use and enhanced life experiences. SalesForce captured a large market share with a cloud-based CRM. Uber does not have any cars but united millions of drivers to pick you up.

  BE THE UNDERDOG. A lot of customers love a good underdog story and will connect with you through your ‘David and Goliath’ brand story. Emphasizing your brand’s humble beginnings can help you differentiate, especially if your competitors are focused on being the biggest and the best. Sir Richard Branson has launched the Virgin brand into multiple sectors with a ‘David and Goliath’ strategy, challenging the perceived big guys and the status quo as the “customer’s champion.”

  CONSISTENTLY OVER-DELIVER ON CUSTOMER SERVICE. With all other factors equal to your competitors, consistently superior customer service and exceeding expectations can differentiate your brand. Online shoe store Zappos commands a premium price tier because of their outstanding customer service, including free shipping and free returns. They don’t even make shoes.

  TELL YOUR UNIQUE BRAND STORY. Every successful brand has a compelling story behind it. Fully developing and emphasizing your brand story can help you differentiate, be core to your brand DNA, and reinforce the personality, promise and values of your brand. Volcom, the action sports brand started with a story supported with a “youth against establishment” marketing position.

  APPEAL TO EMOTIONS. Your brand can stand out by delivering an emotional experience that’s associated with your product or service. Coca-Cola capitalizes on emotional appeal by branding their products as happy, implying it’s the maker of joy and harmony. Everything Coca-Cola does from a strategic branding perspective is to associate the brand with “happy occasions.” Too bad more people are drinking juice and water. ☺ Oh, is that why Coco-Cola is buying water and juice brands.

  PERSONIFY YOUR PRODUCT. A slightly different strategy from brand mascots, brand personification involves creating a “character” that represents the characteristics of your brand. Green Giant, which sells vegetables, has done this successfully with the Jolly Green Giant, while Keebler snacks are personified through the Keebler Elves.

  GIVE BACK. Modern customers, most notably Millennials, love to get behind a brand that gives back to the community. By emphasizing corporate social responsibility (CSR), you can differentiate your brand and get an edge over the competition such as Tom’s shoe company.

  REDEFINE YOUR PRODUCT USE. If your products can accomplish more than one thing, the alternate use can help you differentiate your brand. As an example, Arm & Hammer was just another baking soda until the brand began marketing the idea that it also made an excellent air freshener along with a multitude of other uses.

  PROVIDE HIGHER QUALITY. Luxury brands are able to command premium pricing through an emphasis on higher quality products – either actual or perceived. Providing luxury is an automatic brand differentiator for most markets as it has done for Coach, Rolex, Porsche and a host of other luxury brands.

  CREATE A NEW CATEGORY. When a marketplace gets very large and is still growing, consider creating a new sub-category within the larger marketplace. This is exactly what Vitamin Water did (in the bottled water marketplace) and it benefited tremendously with its focus on its association with vitamins.

  No matter the strategy you use, you have to create brand differentiation in your customer’s minds and have them “feel” there is no good substitute for your product or service. And the benefits of good brand differentiation are very important.

  THE BENEFITS OF GREAT BRANDING

  The benefits of great branding are critically important to a company. It will hopefully yield better pricing, better gross margin, higher level of consideration, higher degree of trust, respect from your customers and most importantly, customer empathy. This is what allows Starbucks to sell a cup of coffee that costs them about $1.20 for about $4.

  Branding provides the entire company with several key benefits:

  BRANDING PROVIDES A COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE. Whether you’re a non-profit or a for-profit, your organization needs to compete for resources, funding and talent, and audience attention. To win your category, organizations plan and implement strategy and create a roadmap that outlines specific actions and measures for reaching their goals and out maneuvering their peers for needed resources. When done correctly the organization’s brand mirrors their strategic plan, and helps promote strategic areas and initiatives that will move the organization forward.

  BRANDS PROVIDE A STABLE ASSET. Products might fail, companies are bought and sold, technologies change on a daily basis, but strong brands carry on through all these changes. Brands are the most sustainable asset of any organization, and when aligned with the overall strategy of the organization they can function as the central or
ganizing principle for the organization’s decision making. Consider that the Coca-Cola brand has been around for more than 120 years, while most of the world’s other valued brands have existed for just 50 years, and most corporations only last 25 years.

  BRANDS PROVIDE ECONOMIC VALUE. The value of organizations is divided into two areas: intangible and tangible assets—brands being intangible assets. A study of organizations in the S&P 500 index showed that over a 30-year period between 1975 and 2003 the overall corporate value of intangible assets increased from 17% to 80%. The business magazine, Businessweek, has concluded that brands account for more than one-third of shareholder value. This leaves us with the conclusion that the value of most businesses comes from intangible assets, brands being the most prominent of these assets. Consider that the Coca-Cola brand name alone is worth $79 billion and accounts for over 54% of the stock market value of the organization. Because of their financial impact, brands are a unique organizational asset. Brands play a key role in attracting employees, partners and most importantly audiences to an organization. Brands help cut through the clutter of the marketplace, creating awareness for organizations and helping them attract and develop the mutually beneficial relationships with customers, suppliers and the public that they need to reach their goals.

  BRANDS SET EXPECTATIONS. We live in a world based on promises. The airline mechanic promises to do a thorough job, checking and rechecking the aircraft to make sure it’s safe. Restaurants promise to provide fresh food made in clean environments. Our teachers promise to educate and protect our children during the school day. At the heart of branding is the promise that is made by the organization to their customers. The brand promise tells the customers who you are, what you believe in, and what unique value you provide. The ability to fulfill your promises at every stage of the relationship is the defining factor for most organizations’ success or failure. When promises are broken the reputation of the organization is called into question and the brand suffers. When brand promises are kept, audiences respond with loyalty and affection.

  THE POWER OF EMOTIONAL BRAND BENEFITS

  Many marketers would agree that we buy some products and services that enhance our positive sense of self-esteem in some way. We believe that all brands, products and their features are associated with a rewarding emotional payoff. Moreover, all features and benefits are linked to emotional end benefits. Think of brands like Apple, Samsung, Fiji Water, Mercedes, Ford, Starbucks, Dunkin’ Donuts, Hershey, Godiva, Tiffany, Nike, Coach, and Disneyland. We seek out these brands with their USPs (unique selling proposition), features and functional benefits because we like the way they make us feel and what they allow us to communicate about ourselves. But let’s backtrack for a moment. People get confused between emotions and emotional benefits. There is an important distinction between them that marketers need to understand.

  EMOTIONAL VS. RATIONAL BENEFITS

  An “emotion” is best defined as a state of physiological arousal to which we attach a cognitive label. Let’s assume there are only four core emotions” mad, glad, scared and sad. Knowing how our brand, features and functions or brand activity (concepts, advertising, names, taglines, etc.) makes someone “feel” is only minimallyuseful. We definitely want to know if our marketing makes people feel “glad” or “bad, “but that is ONLY a measure of valence; it does little or nothing to lend direction to our creative efforts. It tells us nothing about how to set the mood and tone for our advertising or even necessarily how to FIX any bad feelings that emerge. It is the “emotional benefit” and not the raw “emotion” that is most informative, motivating and useful for brand development. An emotional benefit, not a physiological state of arousal with a simplistic label, is an often complex, positive, cognitive statement that our respondents are able to make about themselves due to their use, display and attachment to our brand and its features.

  More succinctly, an emotional benefit is nothing more than “something nice” I can say about myself because I use your product or service. Now, armed with this more precise definition of an emotional benefit, let me proceed to discuss exactly how emotional benefits influence purchase and branding. Emotional benefits, although mostly unconscious, are attached to specific elements of a brand and to the brand itself as a whole. You can actually think of them entirely without reference to the word “emotion” and remain fully in the rational sphere, if you prefer, because it is really just the “kind of person” that a particular rational feature supports. The emotional benefit or value is the adjective describing the self. See the examples below and it will make sense:

  I am an attractive person because I chose this particular long-lasting lipstick.

  I am a productive person because I purchased an iPhone with a fast microprocessor.

  I am a sexy person because I drive an aerodynamic car.

  I am a powerful person because I bought a rowing machine from an infomercial with that muscular guy.

  I am an energetic person because I replenish electrolytes after exercise with Gatorade.

  In other words, your brand needs to create that emotional benefit in the customers mind because EVERY rational feature is desired for the support of some aspect of self-concept. EVERY LAST ONE! Emotional benefits are able to wield their influence precisely because they work behind the scenes, beyond the awareness of the customer. It is the very fact that they are so elusive and hidden that makes them so very powerful and persuasive. In other words, you can’t say what you want the customer to feel. For example, If you were to read the above benefit statements (e.g., “I am a sexy person because I drive an aerodynamic car”) to a customer directly and ask for levels of agreement, you would get a much lower level of agreement than is, in fact, the case, and market behavior would differ greatly from what you tried to evaluate in your research. Why? Because emotional motivation usually operates below the surface, beyond the ability of respondents to easily access and articulate. People do not want to believe that they are emotionally influenced towards brands or purchase. They find the idea repugnant and aversive. The fact that people do not want to admit to using brands as a method of partially supporting their self-esteem forces these associations out of consciousness, and it prevents people from cognitively reasoning about emotional benefits or articulating them out loud. In fact, many brands make the mistake of raising the emotional benefits to a level of awareness that takes away their power. They try to FORCE the psychological insight benefit by telling the consumer directly. This doesn’t work nearly as well as INDIRECTLY communicating these benefits via an emphasis on specifying the features and functions of the brand that support them, while the creative mood and tone of marketing communications convey the emotional benefit. The ultimate end emotional benefit or value is always enhanced by the self-esteem of the customer.

  So, as a marketer, if you want your brand to create a “feeling” inside the customers’ mind, you need to understand how your product or service creates a sense of positive self-worth to your target customer. Then, via branding and marketing messaging, you can create that feeling inside them and have them say, “I love my iPhone.”

  BRAND INSIGHT

  This company got its start through a single founder in the 1960’s. He started the company quite by accident when he fashioned some unique climbing gear to help him and his friends climb more safely. Over the years, the company started to grow and they added other products that were not only different in color and style but they were designed better. By no means did the company have a smooth ride in its growth. Sales went up, sales went down. At some point, sales really began to grow consistently and the founders asked themselves, “What do we want to be known for as a company? How do we want our customers to feel about us? What brand are we creating?” That led to deep introspection and out of that came a core set of values and a mission. Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis. Patagonia was on its way to becoming a powerful bra
nd that creates not just climbing gear and clothes. It creates a feeling in their customers’ minds that there is no substitute for not buying the best outdoor clothing from a brand that is helping the planet. I love my Patagonia vest.

  KEY TAKEAWAY

  Brands can be built very purposefully. It’s not about marketing. It’s about having a set of values and a mission and then building a brand that communicates those values in such a way that it creates a unique emotional benefit within your customers’ hearts and minds.

  5

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE STRATEGY BEHIND THE BRAND.

  * * *

  In 1995, I got a phone call from my partner and CEO of our marketing agency. I was in Portland, Oregon at the time and he was in our corporate office in Cupertino, California in a building we had purchased from Apple. We had gone public earlier that year and our integrated marketing agency was on an insane growth trajectory. We were basically tripling in size each year. So, we were all very busy. Our Portland office was working on putting a local beer brand, Widmer, into bottles nationally, doing solid marketing work for Mitsubishi Motors, consulting on digital strategies with Nike, and although we did not know it, we were only 2-3 months out from winning the Amazon account.

  After some casual talk between us, he indicated the reason for his call. He had received a phone call from a well-known venture capitalist at Sequoia Capital. That VC indicated they had just made a $3 million dollar investment in what essentially were two college kids and what they hoped would be a powerful Internet based company. My partner indicated that all three offices in California were crazy busy, they had no bandwidth, and with our early work in digital branding and marketing, could we take on the company as a new client. I asked what the account basically needed. He said they needed branding, design and marketing help. I asked him, “What is the company’s brand or marketing strategy?” He said, “I have no clue.” I asked, “Well, what is their business model?” He said, “I have no clue.” So, as a partner, I leaned in and indicated we would take on Yahoo! as our new client. We worked with them for several months. It was crazy. We eventually designed their logo, redesigned their website and added several other valuable elements. But we could never get the founders or the new company executives to settle on ANY strategy. They simply never could get the team to agree on almost anything. That core problem led them years later to bypass the acquisition of Google. They simply could not agree on a price even though it probably would have propelled them to another level. Or perhaps they would have messed that up. Who knows? Funny thing is, Yahoo! still does not have a brand strategy today. Or a sustainable business model. The company was recently sold to Verizon and who knows what they are going to do with it.