What Branding Isn't
Recently one of my friends, Christina of Branding Brand, was quoted in a Pittsburgh Business Times article about, of course, branding.
I feel I have to comment on this article because it really doesn’t explain what a brand is, I’m not sure why the author left this part out. A number of gems offer attempts to explain, but range from falling short to incorrect.
To put this matter to bed, again, I’m going to tell my readers that a company’s brand is what everyone else thinks about it. What is top of mind when you think about Apple or Amazon? Think of a brand as a personality. Companies are brands, products are brands, people are brands. Take yourself for example. Every interaction someone has with you has the potential to move their opinion of you in one direction or another, or influence what they think of your personality. The same can be said about a company. Highly successful brands own singular words in your mind, something Al Ries and Jack Trout wrote about in Positioning. My favorite example is Kleenex.
A troubling snippet from the Pittsburgh Business Times would be from Jim Cipriani, “What you are trying to uncover is what is unique … about what the company is offering. It is tough to brand something like toilet paper. People just look for the cheapest.”
This my friends is a contradiction in a few ways. First, affordability is in fact a brand characteristic, and a legitimate one. Wal-Mart anyone? Southwest Airlines? Both have spent a lot to brand themselves as affordable. Affordability has a legitimate emotional appeal, spending less money on one thing allows you spend more on another, and lead a richer life. Wal-Mart quite literally with, “Save Money. Live Better,” and Southwest as, “a symbol of freedom.” Cheaper tickets equals more travel. Second, if toilet paper is so hard to brand, then why are there so many kinds? When you think about the softest for example, what do you think of? Charmin, Cottonelle? Not so hard is it. Those products have positioned themselves in a crowded marketplace, and have been successful. There’s no such thing as a commodity anymore. It’s been proven time and time again. You can position and brand anything. The list is endless.
Kate Tomlinson of Ripple Effects tells us that, “A brand is an all-encompassing thing in the marketplace.” Yes, thing. This is confusing and ultimately off-base. A brand exists in the minds of consumers. Your job as brand custodian is to affect it. Your tools are all the tools of communication: visual, written, verbal. You must be your brand. If you’re Lexus, you want your customers to think luxury. Everything from the typography in your brochure to the voice in your television ads has to just ooze it. If you want to be friendly and approachable, your e-mails and ad copy should be playful. If you want to be exclusive, maybe you talk down to your customer a little bit and make him feel less of a man. No joke. The most interesting man in the world is in fact more interesting than you.
Of note is how the author cites how Heinz is spending $100 million in two years on advertising and marketing for its 57 varieties moniker, and then later the explains that, “Advertising doesn’t build credibility, publicity does. Get your message out through the media and online.”
PR is without a doubt more cost-effective for small upstart firms, but advertising maintains brands and cultivates the company personality. To say advertising is dead is just inaccurate and simplistic. I would have to guess that it’s said only to motivate small business and encourage disruptors. GEICO has built their entire company on playful pop-culture advertising and supported it with customer service. FedEx vs. UPS is an interesting example. Over the past several years FedEx has shown a playful side with their advertising, whereas UPS has been more serious, “what can brown do for you?” Back to Heinz, I am 25 years old, and I for one really have no idea what 57 varieties means anymore, and I’m sure they realize that at Heinz. I know historically what it is being from Pittsburgh, but I struggle with association. To me Heinz means ketchup, Pittsburgh, and diners. 57 varieties maybe means authenticity if I think hard enough. If this isn’t what Heinz wants me to think, then it’s indeed time to spend some money. To be fair to Heinz, they have done a great job (they’ve had over 100 years to do it), and of note is that they do not call all their products ‘Heinz’, they own a huge number of independently branded product lines. If 57 varieties is to be put into the public consciousness more, I would focus on the values of quality, authenticity, taste (supposedly) common to all Heinz products.
In conclusion, do a little digging for yourself. Read Al Ries, Jack Trout, David Ogilvy, or talk to a good agency. Understand that the key to successful branding is not, “consistently repeat[ing] your message so the public remembers it.” I for one wouldn’t find that appealing.