Re: Branding and marketing

From: Rob Frankel <rob_at_robfrankel.com>
Date: Tue 09 Jan 2001 16:30:56 -0500

GERI STUNZ KONSTANTIN <geri_at_virtualadv.com> WROTE:
> I think this Digest needs to go back to basics. The
> reason why so many dot coms are failing (including
> priceline.com) is their failure to understand basic
> marketing. This talk about "branding" is apparently the
> latest misconception.
>
> Firstly, you do branding for products, not services.

Um, that's totally and completely wrong. No offense,
just calling it like I see it. Brands turn users into
evanglists, and you can evangelize a service just as
easily as a product. Maybe moreso. I always point
out that the ultimate success of a well-branded service
is to have a prospect say, "I don't car how much they
cost -- just get them on this job. I don't trust
anyone else!"

Ka ching!

> Branding for a product (hence a "brand") encompasses
> doing advertising/marketing whose strategy is purely to
> establish or strengthen brand awareness of a product.

Also completely and totally wrong. Branding is
branding. Advertising merely raises the awareness of
the brand. The two obviously should be compatible, but
don't ever mistake one of the other. BIG mistake, as
our dot com friends have found out.

> Examples of successful branding:
>
> 1) A blue rectangle on a shoe subliminally makes you
> think of a Keds Brand Sneaker.

It does? But how does that make you choose it?

> 2) When you walk down the aisle in the supermarket and
> see an orange cereal box, you don't even have to look,
> you know it's Wheaties Brand Cereal.

You do? But how does that make you choose it?

> 3) When you see something wiggle on your plate you
> automatically assume it's Jello Brand Gelatin.

I don't. I stab it with a fork and then skin it, and
mount its head on the wall in my wood paneled study.

> Branding is usually associated with existing,
> established products.

Um, no. Branding is critical to rapid integration of
new products, too. That's how they get up to speed in
an existing marketplace. The brand is how people
distinguish the old stuff from the new.

> Now that the term is used loosely, it apparently has
> lost it's real meaning and hence its effectiveness.

Honestly, it's confusion that's messed it up.

> Brand building and branding are not one and the same
> either. Brand building encompasses a variety of
> advertising and marketing techniques. Branding
> encompasses specific and usually visual or audible
> techniques to in essence create a Pavlovian response to
> certain stimulae to impress a Brand name product in
> someone's mind. You think Tide you think clean. Tide
> owns "clean". No one else can touch it.

Guess that leaves Clorox and Fab and Pine Sol out, eh?

> Priceline.com's miserable failure to market a new
> service properly and to it's real target audience was
> probably due to people who considered that "branding".
> I call it a real waste of the client's money.

Well, there I agree with you. More people confused as
to what branding is and how it works. But just because
they got it wrong doesn't invalidate the discipline.

> Back to branding - brand loyalty is not branding
> either. Brand loyalty is built up through favorable
> price points, superior products and tangible consumer
> benefits. This can be accomplished more quickly than
> branding.

Wrongoritos, mon ami. You're brush is too broad. I
can make the same claim with premium price points on
products and services with parity quality. In fact, I
often have to.

> I get the feeling that the discussions in this Digest
> about branding should have been about building name
> recognition for companies. This too is not branding...

No, that's awareness. Completely different animal.

> Lastly, the comment about "oh he/she drives brand "X"
> or uses brand "x"meaning it is good" is not branding,
> that's simply being able to successfully use the
> psychology of advertising. After all you can say that
> about a Ferrari, a Porsche, a Lexus, a Rolls Royce,
> and.... see what I mean? It has no reflection on a
> specific brand. Just on consumer perception in general.
> Favorable consumer perception is NOT branding
> either....

Ah, here I agree, which is why I maintain that Nike is
a not a good brand, but a popular one. ANYONE who can
pay Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan can enjoy the
borrowed interest and pray it rubs off on their
company. But the minute the bucks run out, so does the
brand value. Anyone remember L.A. Gear paying Michael
Jackson $40 million?

> Branding is slighly elusive in it's definition, but is
> specific in it's goals. It is not an easy thing to do.
> To do it well takes years of experience and a lot of
> planning.

Agreed! Someone should write a book about it.

Rob Frankel, http://www.robfrankel.com
Big Time Branding Guy and Author of "The Revenge of
Brand X: How to Build A Big Time Brand on the Web or
Anywhere Else" & "The Frankel Tapes -- Volume One"
on sale now at http://www.revengeofbrandx.com





Received on Tue Jan 09 2001 - 15:30:56 CST