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You need to be a genius to do marketing today. Markets are incredibly complex, customers demand ever more, and competition is intense.
Marketing injects the customer insight and creative thinking that gives business its edge. However it must combine this with the analytical and commercial rigour that drives strategy, innovation and profitable growth.
From the vision of Apple to the insight of Zara, the passion of Nike and irreverence of Jones Soda, the entrepreneurship of Jet Blue and thrill of Agent Provocateur, today's leading brands and marketers think and act differently.
The genius of marketing lies in the ability to connect outside and inside, markets and business, customers and shareholders, creativity and analysis, promises and reality, today and tomorrow.
Genius marketers, like Einstein and Picasso, apply intelligence in more imaginative ways. They use their left and right brains to seize the best opportunities, to stand out from the crowd, and to lead the business.
The following extract ("Track 5" of 15) from Marketing Genius helps you:
- Explore what creates a great brand, how it lives and evolves, and how to maximise its power.
- Learn from the brand thinking of Virgin, the passion of Pret A Manger, and the unrelenting focus of BMW.
- Develop your own brand strategy, with a clear architecture, brought to life inside and out, to build long-term brand equity.
TRACK 5: Brands
Finding the big idea that defines you
Brands are about you not me.
Brands are about people not products.
Brands are about customers not companies.
A great brand is one you want to live your life by, one you trust and hang on to whilst everything around you is changing, one that articulates the type of person you are or want to be, one that enables you to do what you couldn't otherwise achieve.
Brands were originally developed as labels of ownership. However today it is what they do for people that matters much more, how they reflect and engage them, how they define their aspiration and enable them to do more. Powerful brands can drive success in competitive and financial markets, and indeed become the organisation's most valuable assets.
Yet there are few great brands around.
Most brands are still labels, relying too strongly on brand names and logos, and focused too heavily on the companies and products that they help identify. They are articulated through superficial straplines, and delivered through generic service. They make promises that the organisation struggles to deliver, often failing to even attract attention, and rarely gaining the trust of sceptical customers.
Powerful brands have the ability to cut-through the noise and competitiveness of markets, and to engage and retain the best customers in a way that delivers superior financial results in both the short and long-term.
A powerful brand is one that:
- Defines a compelling purpose, a big idea that stands out from the crowd, that goes beyond the product or industry, and really matters to people.
- Reflects the customer, builds an image and reputation in the mind of the customer that has personal relevance, even if it alienates others.
- Engages customers in achieving the big idea, delivered in a style through which people say "this is my kind of company".
- Enables customers to do more, reinforcing the benefits, and supporting their application, but also enabling physically or emotionally to do even more.
- Anchors customers around something familiar and important, whilst all else in the market, or in their personal world, continues to change.
- Evolves as markets and customers evolve, with the portability to move easily into new markets, and glue to connect diverse activities.
- Attracts the target customers, building preference, driving purchase behaviour and sustaining a price premium.
- Retains the best customers, building their loyalty, introducing new services, and encouraging advocacy.
- Drives shareholder value, not only through profits, but also by improving investor confidence, credit ratings and reducing cost of capital.
A powerful brand does all of this. However a brand that attracts great attention because of its impressive ads, and that is perceived to be cool and desirable, and drives huge demand, is still not "powerful" unless it can also convert this demand into sustained profitability.
Reflecting and engaging people
If brands are about people rather than products, then the big idea around which they are formed is more to do with what it does for people rather than the company.
There are a million models of a "brand" - however in common are three simple components - functional, comparative and emotional. By collectively defining what it does for people, differently from anything else, and how it makes them feel, then we articulate "the essence" of the brand. To be compelling and enduring typically involves a far more profound idea than product, company or even sector-related benefits. It reflects aspirations rather than just needs, it provokes rather than just informs.
 The brand idea is then delivered through every possible medium that the organisation can utilise - from names and logos to leaders and buildings, products and services to advertising and brochures, colours and packaging to uniforms and interiors, culture and behaviours to training and rewards. Every aspect of the corporate or product "experience" can deliver the brand in tangible and intangible ways. As Jan Carlson, former CEO of airline SAS said "every person, every promise and every action is a moment of truth".
Whilst business strategy will typically include logical mission statements and objectives, corporate brands capture the essence of why the business exists, and what it does for people. They use language and symbols that capture the essence of business concepts and customer promises, they use these symbols as compelling short-hand to convey them. There should of course be strong alignment between the strategies and brands, both define the business, rationally and emotionally.
Howard Shultz set up Starbucks out of frustration at the coffee quality in his native Seattle, however the brand he created is much more than coffee. Shultz explains that he "identified a third place, which I really believe sets us apart, not work or home, it's the place our customers come for refuge." This drives the product range, the interior design, the service philosophy, the communications: the tall skinny latte is good, but the known routine and comfortable environment mean more.
Similarly, other brands give their organisations a core, engaging purpose, which connects all audiences emotionally in "why we do business". Internally, brands stir emotions and energises people internally and externally to reach for the higher-order benefits that they are working towards.
- For Nike - "to do your best"
- For Coke - "to refresh"
- For Microsoft - "to help realise your potential"
Even the most dull, boring industrial sector, dealing in so-called "commodities" like cement or fertilizer can still create strong and compelling brands - look at Cemex or BASF, bringing real differentiation to the worlds of cement that dries faster, or fertiliser that makes your grass greener.
However the brand is more than what you do - in fact it is not even what you do. In reality a brand is defined by how it is received and perceived - the image and reputation that forms in people's minds. A corporate brand is the reputation of the company. A product brand is the reputation of the product. Whether you think you are more likely to achieve a personal best with Nike rather than Adidas, or whether you believe that Coke is more refreshing than Pepsi.
A brand that does more for people, that reflects their personal needs and ambitions, that stirs emotions inside and tingles the hairs on the back of their necks has the making of a powerful brand. And of course, if you seek to be special for some people, you will inevitably not engage others.
A great brand is therefore rarely liked by everyone - it stirs up passions, it polarises people, it alienates some, but is loved by others. As Kevin Roberts, worldwide CEO of Saatchi and Saatchi, and author of "Lovemarks" says about a brand and its core audience, "a truly strong brand is one that you love deeply and unconditionally."
Enabling people to do more
Powerful brands enable people to do what they couldn't otherwise do. They must do more than simply endorse functional products, either by helping them to do something physically, or by building confidence and belief in their minds. Sony, for example, is all about helping people "go create", encouraging their innovation and inspiring their action, helping them to do what they couldn't previously achieve.
Brands can typically help people to do more in four different ways:
- Do what they seek to achieve better, through improved functionality or support
- Be how they want to be perceived, through a strong identity that gives recognition and is admired by others
- Belong to a community that they seek to be part of, through improved real or perceived connections
- Become somebody more than they are, adding personal esteem or the capabilities and confidence to do what they couldn't otherwise achieve.
Once a brand creates such a strong attachment with people, one that they find emotionally or practically essential to their lives, then the brand becomes an "anchor" which can be more trusted, more permanent, more desired than many other things. Without anchors we can easily become lost in the maelstrom of competitive intensity. Imagine the drinker who couldn't get their favourite drink, or the weekly shopper whose visit to a certain supermarket becomes part of their routine, or the high fashion wearer who stays loyal to their favourite designer label.
Anchor brands give people something positive to hang on to, whilst their markets or even their personal worlds are constantly changing. This rollercoaster of desire and choice can destabilise even the most confident buyer, creating confusion and anxiety, prompting expense and insecurity. More messages, more alternatives, more functionality, more versions, more incentives . it can all become too much.
Brands that reflect people more personally, and do more for them, are likely to be the best anchors.
Graphic designers hang on to Apple, serious runners hang on to Nike, business leaders continue to rely upon McKinsey. However brands that seek to serve mass markets, to mean something to everyone, and therefore struggle to have strong bonds with discrete audiences, are unlikely to become the chosen anchors. Brands like Marks and Spencer, Reebok or Budweiser have succeeded by trading on mass popularity, convenience and ubiquity. What made them great could easily become their biggest handicap.
Levi's is another company trying to find relevance in today's world. When Nick Kaman took his jeans off in the famous 1983 TV commercial, the world wanted to buy his jeans. It was cool to be the same. However in recent years, the brand has seen a 65% decline in revenues, despite its increasingly frantic efforts to revive itself. In the past it was cool to be the same. Everyone wanted to be like him. Today, to be cool is to be different, and for young people that is likely to exclude wearing the same jeans as their parents, or even their peers. Today, people are more different, and therefore brands must reflect these greater differences, and recognise that to be king of a niche is better than foolishly trying to conquer the world.
Driving short and long-term value
Brands attract and retain the best customers, and as a result are able to charge more, sell more, more often. This drives improved margins and creates greater certainty of future incomes too. Indeed brands are increasingly one of the most significant drivers of shareholder value, incredibly valuable intangible assets, increasing the quantity and likelihood of future profits.
These future potential profits, driven by the loyalty of customers to the brand, are often termed "brand equity", and indeed a true reflection of the return on investment in a brand is only achieved by considering the brand equity that can drive current and future profits, rather than just comparing costs against short-term gains.
However brands can do even more than this. A strong corporate brand doesn't just drive improved profits from customers, it also drives employee and shareholder behaviour too. Corporate brands have a strong and direct impact on employee morale, recruitment and retention, which can obviously flow through into better service for customers, ideas and productivity, and human capital.
Sears, the Canadian retailer, according to an article in Harvard Business Review is able to demonstrate that a 5% improvement in employee attitude drives a 1.3% increase in customer satisfaction, which drives a 0.5% increase in revenue growth. Sears reflects this employee-customer-profit chain in their business objectives, to create "a compelling place to work, a compelling place to shop, and a compelling place to invest".
For shareholders, as well as the effect of more profitable sales, a strong brand can improve confidence through a better awareness and understanding of the organisation, and a stronger view of future performance. This perception and reality of reduced risk can lead to improved credit ratings and lower the cost of capital, both of which can have a significant impact on the economics of the business, as well as encouraging more investment and subsequent improvement in the share price.
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