Canadian Marketing Blog

The Changing World of Brand Zealots

I'm a self-confessed brand zealot. I've spent my professional career counseling clients on brands, am now a partner in a Brand Consultancy and teach Brand Development at the Executive Masters of Advertising and Design program at the Ontario College of Advertising and Design. Without question brand stewardship is evolving at warp speed as marketers attempt to keep pace with the new digital world.

Many aspects about championing brands will change but one will not. Consumers don't create brands, marketers do. A brand is a promise companies make to consumers. A distinct promise of value. Deliver on the promise and you get rich, Break the promise and you go broke. This will not change. What has changed and will continue to change rapidly is how brands interact with consumers.

Consumers armed with power of the net can impart great influence on brands. Intelligent brands are no longer marketed in a top-down fashion. The marketing monologue has been replaced by a marketing dialogue. It's been said the majority of brand impressions are now initiated by consumers. While some marketers are challenged by the growing consumer influence and brand control, brand leaders are not.

Great marketers have always listened keenly to their customers to best fulfill their needs,wants and desires. The net and the digital world make listening more timely, more accurate and perhaps more honest. Brand champions must encourage a truthful dialogue and be open to all comments, positive and negative. They also must be quick to respond. Two way communication between brands and consumers benefits both the brand and the user. Consumers are willing to talk, and brands must reciprocate. I read recently that "listening and responding to consumer feedback is perhaps the biggest building block to cultivating a brand that resonates in the digital space." With all this being said, that marketers must engage in two-way communication outside of a few instances like Chrysler and Nike, I have yet to find many cases where marketers are truly engaging in a on-going dialogue with their customers.

Please share your cases with me either here or at tony@maximpartnersinc.com

Tony,
the records of marketers creating brands are about the same as new restauranteurs, not that good.

The solid brands internationally have been created over many years and many marketers have been consumed in their creation, good, bad and indifferent.

Professional marketers do a good job but a brand quite simply is a backward facing measure. It is an indicator of past success and a marker of curent status though not a guarantee of future success.

Brand assets can be formidable and comfort consumers, investors, employees (including marketers) and suppliers. Like a solid stock price, brands inspire everybody in the value stream.

On the other hand saying that marketers create the brand in isolation is, in my view, myopic.

It is easy to create a brand when you have dominant market share and the brand recognition and value often lags sales. In a decline brand often hangs around a long time long after sales have sunk into the pit. Ask GM.

Brand is backward facing and a few brave marketers should start thinking about this simple observation.

Cheers,
Nick
www.scenario2.com