A few days back, Manish had an extremely interesting post titled ‘Image vs Algorithm’. It questions the relevance of ‘brand image’ in a scenario where people just ‘do a google’ when they need information about a product or brand.Yes, I know that you don’t google when you want to buy a razor or a soap, such brands would still need some good old marketing communication and POP to help swing the purchase decision in their favor (though adverse information, and the net’s ability to disperse this information would still affect them), but how about the considered purchases, where Google does its share of the work in giving information to consumers? More importantly, what does this mean for all those brands that complete their entire revenue model online?
Wikipedia defines brand as a “a collection of symbols, experiences and associations connected with a product, a service, a person or any other artefact or entity.” (for some interesting branding quotes, drop in here, courtesy @shefaly). Earlier there was a large degree of control that the brand had on all three parameters. The internet, however, made the experiences of consumers shareable, and that has now started shaping associations – forcing official brand custodians out of the control seat, because a search for the brand throws up not just their official communication, but blogs, microblogs, images, videos, and what consumers have to say about them and competitors.
Most of the brand lessons and theories we have evolved are from an age when communication from the brand and consumers’ individual experiences were the only parameters of judging a brand – which perhaps meant that brands like Coke took decades to become a super brand. With the advent of the net, and social media, the brand’s consumers are taking to each other. I’d touched upon this topic a while back, and mentioned the paradigm shift presented by Saatchi’s Lovemarks concept- from “You->Your Brand->Consumer” to “You->Consumer->Their Brand”, which perhaps explains the success of internet brands like Google, Yahoo, Facebook etc. These brands have had evangelists almost right from the time they started, and the best type- consumer evangelists.
In many ways, the 4 P’s of marketing are still relevant – the net allows very little room for ‘fluff’ around brands. WYSIWYG is a better way to be for brands, which means the product has to be fundamentally strong, and solve a problem/satisfy a need. Price comparisons are a click away, so a brand’s selling price has to be in sync with the value being offered to the consumer. The ‘place’ can be viewed from a digital perspective too – making sure the information about the brand is available easily to access and share, and if a sale can be made online, ensure that it taps into all possible sales avenues online. While the original intended meaning of ‘promotion’ still holds, perhaps its also time to ‘promote’ the evangelist consumers of the brand, helping them to share their experiences, and giving them the recognition they’d appreciate. And i’ll be a bit presumptuous, and add a lil P of my own – Pertinence (which is quite connected to ‘Place’) , “Relevance by virtue of being applicable to the matter at hand”, because we are already quite into the ‘real time web’, and heading towards the semantic web rapidly. It also means that marketers would do well to acknowledge the fluid nature that this gives their brands – in terms of what a search result (and we’re getting social on search too) would throw up, as well as the changes that would entail in the associations formed in the consumer’s mind.
until next time, here’s to a piece of the consumer’s mind, and for peace of the marketer’s mind 🙂
PS. Building a brand vs building a business. A good read.
on the blog today, ‘a brand is a …’ http://tinyurl.com/76xlew
I’m not so sure that branding is relevant today in an age where consumers have all the power and laugh at branding attempts. In addition marketers I believe are going to have to cut bacl on “branding”efforts unless they can clearly show impact to the bottom line. http://www.richsblog.com
Rich,
I really can’t help to tell you that i do not agree at all with your point. Branding in the digital age is more relevant than ever before. Consumers have milions of choices but less time available, thus they need short-cuts for their purchase-decisions.
How could you be succesful selling products or services if there are no consistent and unique perceptions inside your target’s mind? Why would they choose you instead of your competitor?
Even if a company doesn’t want to do branding, it is doing at the end of the day. Inconsistently and unfocused, but it is always transmitting signals to the mind of their consumers.
I’m absolutely against your point.
Cheers
Gabriel Rossi- Brazil
Have to agree with Gabriel, usually do, he’s a legend and makes absolute total sense 100% of the time, which I guess goes a long way in consistency of message and confidence.
Brands need to work harder in this digital age because of the transparency and the conversations that are happening between consumers. What happens to your telecommunications brand when the service is poor and people are talking? WOM is rapid online, which in turn effects sales and the ‘bottom line’. How can branding not be an important factor in differentiating similar products or services.
When a product or service is being researched online, it tends to mean that the purchasing decision is greater. Yes, the searcher might seek out the functionality, compare prices and products across different places to purchase, but when that decision is made, it’s usually the heart that makes it. What car do you want to be seen driving, what camera do you want in your hands, what mobile do you want to be seen using. This is the point that the branding makes an impact and usually the most likely thing to push someone into purchase. Without branding, how can marketers guarantee someone will choose their product over another.
Branding is not the fluff, it’s the thinking, shaping and implementation of what your business is all about, it’s essence and meaning that sits above any product marketing. And if you get it right, it will last longer than any product life cycle.
Manuscrypts:
I don’t know if Alvin Toffler ever was on your radar, but when I was a child, I remember reading Future Shock from my dad’s shelves. Toffler coined the portmanteau “prosumer” which basically is a term suggesting that the boundaries between ‘producer’ and ‘consumer’ will merge. Although strictly speaking he was discussing customisation/ standardisation oriented themes, this could equally apply to brands. The values of the brand must evolve, consistently in line with and in full view of its netizen consumer/ prosumer base.
Thinking along corporate versus product brands, the high awareness of the prosumer could be quite deadly in case of brand inconsistencies. Unilever and its products Dove and Lynx come to mind. While Unilever promotes Dove with the concept of ‘natural beauty’, it promotes Lynx entirely on ‘how to pull hot women’. Kind of jars for those who know both brands and who may therefore see Unilever’s values as suspect. Perhaps – to an extent – that these silos are what David Aaker describes as silos in brand marketing.
Rich: I’d tend to agree with the views of Gabriel and Lindsay
Gabriel: agree, the methods of branding might require an overhaul, but not the concept itself
Lindsay: amen!! 🙂
shefaly: he was in the library, i know.. i skipped the books during MBA, i was struggling with different textbook perspectives 🙂 familiar with prosumer though… on corporate brands, i’m not sure if there’ll be a lot of consumer overlap (recognising communication) on brands in the same category, but if there is it’ll be quite a challenge
Some other really nice Branding conversation that i’m proud of having contributed: http://tinyurl.com/76xlew
Some other really nice Branding conversation that i’m proud of having contributed: http://tinyurl.com/76xlew
@pphilp Old comment i made Paul, but i reckon it fits to our debate: http://www.manuprasad.com/?p=1118