Two well-known brand strategists engaged in a conversation on Twitter yesterday that caught my attention. Olivier Blanchard, The BrandBuilder and Gabriel Rossi were discussing some of the problems companies have, in their opinion, with marketing and branding.
Gabriel said “People who criticize Marketing & Branding need to learn to see the value of brands as a powerful socio-economic force“, and Olivier’s response was like a glass of cold water in the face: “… as opposed to looking at Marketing and Branding as the discipline of putting together ads, brochures and mailers.”
I’ve worked with so many companies on branding and marketing and that is what I do for them. In fact they often hire me because I am a “big picture” person who can help define and create the vision for the tangible brand, and then backtrack and execute the myriad of details to make it a reality. That has been my role, but I know that while appearance and physical materials are critical components of a successful branding effort, they are only the uppermost layer.
So often, my personal experience with companies is that we are focused on the appearance and business strategy and deals, but we don’t have time to go deep into the heart and soul of the brand and find ways to expose and communicate that. This problem reminds me of an artichoke, and I have slapped together a graphic here to try to demonstrate what I’m talking about…
The heart of a brand, like that of an individual, is vulnerable. It must be both soft enough to prove genuine caring, and strong enough to withstand scrutiny and adversity. But it is your core offering – not your products and services – and if you aren’t in touch with and know what’s in the heart, establishing lasting relationships with customers will be difficult or hit and miss. Do you want a shallow relationship with the people that interact with your brand, or a sympathetic bond that can withstand conflicts?
There are not enough hours in the day – I am all too aware of this, as I often find the bulk of my day being spent on putting out fires, or trying to take advantage of a new opportunity. It’s no wonder, between meetings, presentations, adminstration, lead generation, chasing down dollars owed and creating new content that digging very deep beneath the surface just does not seem to happen. In fact, I had to write this blog post over lunch and was not really present at the table with people, or it wouldn’t have happened. This happens to a lot of us, every day. Too many great ideas, lots of drive, but just not the time or resources to make it all happen now.
But we all need to try to carve out the time to make sure we are in touch with what matters most. Engaging people from the heart of your brand, being vulnerable and forging true and lasting customer relationships, is what will keep companies alive and thriving, through good times and bad times.
I want to thank my personal brand experts on Twitter for giving me great food for thought – not just yesterday, but quite often. The realization is one thing… figuring out what to about it, is a task for another day!
Nice post.
Our product is essentially an affinity marketing tool. We rebrand the browser for companies and have found an amazing difference in the end results when the discussion is focused on what’s good for their customer vs how money will be made. They are not mutually exclusive, but mutually dependent.
I agree, but the most fundamental part of this is the execution by the people on the front line.
In a company I work with, the 4 partners, 1 practice manager and myself are clear and understand the brand and where we want it to be positioned.
But the staff do not always execute that the way we would like. After numerous training days and motivational speeches…we just don’t seem to get the right amount of buy-in. some of our core staff are relying on the outer leaves of the artichoke to do their branding work for them.
I know more training is probably the answer, but gee how much hand holding do we need to do to explain to these people that they are the heart of the artichoke…not my design work!
Hey, Kristi. Sorry for an irrelevant comment here, but your contact info wasn’t working. Wanted to make sure you know you made oDesk.com’s list of Top 100 Blogs for Freelancers.
http://www.odesk.com/blog/2009/04/top-100-freelance-blogs/#comments
While I think Olivier is a great thinker, I’m becoming more and more convinced that you can’t actually “brand” anything anymore. All you can do is go out there in the market and do what you do.
And your customers will brand you.
I saw this time and time again when I was at Microsoft, where the Marketing Suits would decide that a particular app was for X market or Y users, and then busily go ahead and market to them. That market would completely ignore them, but some other group would hop on the train and love it.
Skittles has now “branded” itself as the company that really sucks at Social Marketing. Probably not exactly what they had in mind, huh?
The Skittles example you give, though, Dick, is a little skewed. In social media circles, with us mouthy folks, sure, Skittles has egg on their face. But to the masses, are they not still branded as sugar candy? That is totally within their “control” – the projection of that tangible image, and whether or not packaging and graphics and in-store displays are tight and colors are right and copy is written as envisioned by the brand folks who came up with it and manage it.
A failed social media campaign is more how I think of the Skittles splashed on every social platform they could find. To me personally, that is more a marketing than a branding issue. Their brand didn’t change, to me, I just find their methodologies at getting in the social space to be ineffective. It didn’t diminish or elevate the physical brand as far as I’m concerned.
I do think Olivier is a great thinker. I’d love to know his take on how we can distinguish where lines are drawn regarding what the “brand” even is.
Thanks for your comment – I do agree somewhat customers will brand you…. it’s a tough call to determine what is accurate, what’s majority perception, and where the real truth is, for me.